


Just Another Star Wars Story

by SpaceTravels



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, LOTS OF SPOILERS, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Slow Burn, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7476000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceTravels/pseuds/SpaceTravels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So what does happen after the events of The Force Awakens?  As theories and spoilers abound, one thing is certain - the options are limitless.  This tale is just one possible take on the journey of self-discovery, adventure and relationships that Rey has embarked upon.  As she begins her training in the Force with Luke, Rey is confronted with truths about herself, her past, about the people she cares for, and of her future.  And just as surely as the Light guides her, the shadow of Kylo Ren looms ever nearer.  The monster of a man who she is inexplicably bound to is at once her catalyst, her tormentor, and her mirror.  What she doesn't know yet is that she is also those very same things to him.  </p><p>Please note that this story will eventually contain a teaser chapter posted earlier on AO3 - A Mother's Intuition.  Take a moment to read that one too if you're curious as to how this story will go!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Destiny Realised

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers,
> 
> Welcome to this interpretation of the new Star Wars trilogy. It will remain as canon compliant as possible as it explores one possible direction the story could go, though I am no expert in our favourite galaxy far, far away. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Stars Universe or its characters, except for the Episode I-VI boxed DVD set and the Episode VII blu-ray DVD. ;-)

     Rey was transfixed as she met the gaze of the famous Jedi Master as he stood in front of her. She swallowed with difficulty as she tried to understand what was reflected in those deep blue eyes. There was an intensity there she now knew ran through the entire Skywalker clan - she had seen it Leia, in Kylo Ren, and now, in Luke. But what else was it she saw in that bearded face? It was a mix of things for certain - wisdom, sadness - those were clear. Resignation?  She tilted her head to the side. A grim resignation to the inevitable, she wondered?

     Her own thoughts raced as they watched each other in calm silence. She felt as if she had been carried up the long steps by a will, both outside, and of her own. In fact, all of the events since that BB-8 unit rolled into her life held that same inevitability she saw reflected in Lukes' eyes. The island - her island - now wrapped around in her in a welcoming embrace, making good on the serene promise that it had always made.  She knew for certain she was meant to be here at this moment and that knowledge soaked through to her bones. For now that feeling would have to head off the many questions she simply had no answer for. How had she known about this island? How had she known about… _him_?  Rey swallowed again as her thoughts went to the man she had nearly killed, the same she had seen in daydreams and nightmares for years.

     She pushed away that unwanted image as she nudged her hand holding the Skywalker lightsaber forward a bit, and Luke’s eyes cast down upon it curiously. And then without warning, she felt it drawn out of her hand so that if flew directly across to his. His good hand grasped the hilt, as if testing its feel, remembering something.

     “So, it is you,” he finally said, his voice gravelly as if his throat was not used to forming words any longer.

     Rey bit her lip, uncertain of how to respond. Something told her to be honest, that there was nothing to hide as there was with Kylo Ren. Here, she felt safe.

 _I am not sure what you mean?_   she finally said without speaking, surprising even herself.

     A small smile ghosted across Luke’s face. “Of course you wouldn’t, young one. But I guess that is why you are here?” his tone was gentle, yet firm.

     Rey took a few steps forward, coming closer. She had known about the intense green of this place, of its salty breeze, and of the ocean waters crashing down below against its shores. But she hadn’t known about the energy of the man standing before her and it was unlike anything she had ever felt before. He reminded her of the calmest, quietest day in the desert when not even a grain of sand blew and the horizon remained static on Jakku. It was so unlike the perpetual vortex that had been Kylo Ren. They were both so full of force energy, and yet so different. A shadow crossed Rey’s delicate features as she remembered the dark knight again, lying near death in the snow.

     “I am here because your -, uh I mean...,” Rey’s eyebrows furrowed together as she wondered if it was too presumptuous of her to invoke his familial ties with the General. “Leia has sent me. She”s been looking for you. She needs you.” Rey’s words stumbled and paused more than she intended.

     Luke’s face turned away to look out over the ocean and down the path that Rey had climbed. “You’ve brought…a dear old friend of mine.” Luke motioned towards the Millennium Falcon.

     Rey drew in a quivering breath as she struggled to find the words that needed to be said. “Yes, Chewbacca is here. Han Solo is - is…,” her eyes dropped to the intensely green ground as tears threatened to overtake her.

     Luke’s face took on a grim look, and he nodded, his good hand coming to stroke his beard. “I know, my child. And I know you’ve seen it.”

     Rey’s hazel eyes betrayed both her surprise at Luke’s words and her relief at not having to say what she couldn’t possibly make peace with.

     Luke inclined his head slightly, humbly. “My dear girl, there is so much we must learn from each other. But for now…you must be tired and hungry. Fortunately for you, I am a very good cook,” he said, patting his stomach proudly.  His blue eyes shone with compassion and kindness.

     Rey’s face relaxed visibly as her own eyes lit up at his mention of food. The legend who was Luke Skywalker was just as human as herself, and he wanted her to know it.  He turned, motioning for her to follow, and any remaining tension flowed out of her body as she fell into stride beside the Jedi master.

 

******************

 

     After a hearty meal of warm vegetable stew and freshly baked bread, Rey sat back in her chair, thoroughly satiated by the delicious meal, and glancing around Luke’s simple quarters. His home was neat, well-appointed with items of daily use, and not much else. She had noticed that the small joined buildings made up of greyish stone were clearly built long ago. The ceilings were low, but it had plenty of windows and each sill was bursting with green plants and flowers. The place thrummed with that same energy she felt emanating from him.

     He had told her he had exiled himself to study relics at the ancient Jedi temple that stood not too far away, looking for answers. She had smiled, thinking how it seemed like everyone she had met, including herself, was on a quest of some sort or another. Luke was contemplating her silently, his expression as ever kind and curious.

     “What is your name?” he asked.

     “Rey.”

     “Rey…” he said, his voice trailing off as if deep in thought. Although Rey felt that she was an open book where Luke was concerned, she couldn’t glean what he was thinking. In her mind she saw him as a strong tree that had weathered many years and stood witness to so many things, and who was as yet, completely inscrutable.

     He took a deep breath and his head tilted slightly to the side. “I sense your curiosity, young Rey. You’e been thrown suddenly into a world that you didn’t even know existed,” his inflection was light, almost amused.

     Rey exhaled, nodding her head. “A BB unit rolled into my life, and suddenly I was in the midst of it all - the Resistance, the First Order, the Millennium Falcon, General Organa, Kylo Ren.”

     A shadow swept quickly across Luke’s face and left. “So tell me then what you think. I want to know what you think you are doing here, in your own words.”

     Rey’s hazel eyes dropped to the floor. “I don’t really know, Master Luke. I’m just a scavenger from Jakku. My days until now were spent in the underbelly of Empire remnants, making out the most basic of livings, and everyday mostly the same. Of course, from the traders and dealers that came through Niima Outpost, I heard about the war and of names, but those things had no real meaning to me, so far gone were they from my day to day survival. I’ve read what history I could get my hands on, but still it had no meaning to my life. My goal was only to make it through the day, so I could continue my wait the next one.”

     “Waiting for what?”

     Rey looked out the window again, her eyes feasting upon the colourful flowers. “For my family to return for me.”

     Luke nodded, thoughtfully stroking his beard. “You grew up yourself, alone?”

     She nodded slowly, as she remembered those words spoken to her — _you’re so lonely, so afraid to leave._

     “Rey, did you ever notice anything unusual about yourself? Did you ever wonder how such a young girl could survive in such a hostile place?”

     Rey shook her head, thinking through her years. She understood that he was asking her about the Force. And then something struck her quite suddenly - the words of other scavengers who had called her unusually lucky, quick to learn, and quick to act and react. She had seen their envious stares as she was able to get into impossible spaces, almost as if she had an extra sense of just where to step or to lay a hand. And then there had been those few instances where she had averted serious injury by finding a handhold at the last minute with lightening quick reflexes, or a way of moving her body to avoid the most serious of consequences. Her eyebrows drew together and she could see Luke nodding slightly.

     “Yes, Rey. The Force has always been with you. It’s always been there guiding you.”

     “Maz told me that the Light has always been there,” her voice echoed softly even as she struggled to understood what it all could mean.  What she now realised is that she had apparently understood very little about herself until she had battled wills with…Kylo Ren.

     Luke nodded and Rey knew that what lay unspoken between them, he already understood.

     “Kylo Ren is an incredibly powerful force user, Rey. I should know, because I trained him for a time. But he is reckless and undisciplined, and he often acts without thinking first. And I think that impulsivity has only grown with time as he strikes out in every direction in desperation. He is searching for something, and still it alludes his grasp. He is lost.”

     Rey’s hazel eyes flashed angrily at the mention of his name, as she recalled their haphazard duel and the horrifying way he had beat at his own wounds. “He is a beast of a man!” she spat. She felt something twinge deep inside of her, but she brushed the sensation aside.

     “And yet he is the son of both my sister and my very best friend.” Simple words, spoken in an even tone.

     Rey sucked in her breath heavily as her anger swirled around her. “He is a cold-blooded murderer. It doesn’t matter who his parents are…he came out a monster nonetheless.”

     Luke watched her carefully. “Ben was not always a monster, Rey. In fact, his energy from before reminds me very much of you…”

     Rey’s sat back, startled. Had Luke just told her that she reminded him of Kylo Ren?

     He shook his head. “No, Rey. Not of Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren makes his choice everyday to grasp onto the Dark Side. He uses if for guidance, and draws his power from it. He wants to prove his worth to it and have its approval,” he paused, stroking his beard again as he watched Rey. “It is a lot for you to understand now, so new to the ways of the Force are you. But Rey, what I meant back there, outside, is simply this — not too long ago, I felt an awakening in the Force. It was dormant... for a time. It was always there, make no mistake, but during the time of the Jedi and Sith it was alive and buzzing with energy. It was like a rushing river, bursting its dam. And then for some years, it became quiet, gently trickling.  We’ll discuss that another time. But I want you to know that I knew that you were coming as soon as I felt that awakening. I know what the Force was asking of me, and that it is also asking something of you. I don’t know yet where your path lies, as the future is constantly in flux and there are many possibilities in its wings. But what I do know is that I am here now and you made your choice to come here. So, if you accept me as your guide, we will walk the path together for a time. You are free to leave at anytime. It is your _choice_.”

     Rey listened attentively to every word that Luke said, trying desperately to understand what it all meant. But Luke had no need to read her mind, her confusion was clearly expressed on her face.

     “With choice, comes grave responsibility, Rey. I want you to think about this. You have only begun to understand your power. Like each of us before you, we have all faced our tests. We’ve been tempted by the Dark Side, and some of us have fallen to it. You are no different. You will be tested, you will be tempted.”

     “I could never go to the dark side. I could never be like Kylo Ren!”

     Luke's eyes again shone with kindness and compassion.  “What do you think the Dark Side means, Rey? It is not something that lives outside of us. It lives inside of me, it lived inside of my father and eventually consumed him until he betrayed all of the Light that lived in him previously. It lived inside of Ben Solo, beckoning him until he decided to open the door and let it in, becoming Kylo Ren in the process. And it lives inside of you, too. It is powerful and satisfying in many ways, and in times of desperation it can lend a certainty that is otherwise elusive. That is where the temptation lies. If you remember only one thing of what I say, please know this, Rey - the greatest enemy any of us face is our own self, in the shadow of our own soul.” Luke’s tone was gentle but persistent as he spoke. There was no arrogance in his words as she had sensed with Kylo Ren, though her instincts told her that the Jedi master's words were imbued with layers of meaning for her.  

     They sat in silence for a few long moments, the atmosphere heavy with so many things yet unspoken.  Finally he smiled.  

     “A bit intense for a first meeting, wouldn't you say?"  his eyes twinkled with humour.   "I think that this is more than enough for today. I want you to get comfortable here tonight, rest, and we will speak again in the morning. For now, I would very much like to go and see Chewbacca. I sense his…pain,” Luke said as a sad look crossed his features.

     Rey made a motion to get up and leave, her mind reeling with everything that Luke had said.  

     He reached out, and took her gently by the shoulder.  “May I suggest that you find a nice spot to meditate, wherever feels right to you?  Just go there, sit comfortably and breathe. Let your worries go, let go of your questions for the moment, and feel the energy of this place. Recognise this place as the one in your dreams. You understand already what it can bring you, but now it is time to experience it.”

     Rey nodded her head in awe, wondering how he could already know so much about her. Kylo Ren had done the same, but Luke’s presence was soothing in contrast to the terror she had felt with the dark knight. Her heart swelled with gratitude as she stared back at Luke. “Thank you, Luke, for everything.”

     “Don’t thank me yet. You really don’t know what you’re in for. I certainly had not a clue when I was in your place.” Luke’s words reflected a certain amusement and nostalgia as he shook his head. “Not a clue…”


	2. Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More set-up happening. We still need a few more chapters before those two are dramatically re-united, but we'll get there soon, I promise!

     Rey awoke with the the first sounds of birds in the morning, well before the sunrise.  She quickly washed up and donned her clothing before stepping out of her hut and climbing the steep hill to the top of one of the cliffs.  She had been exhausted and drifted into a heavy slumber at first, before her nightmares had arrived yet again.  Over and over, she saw Kylo Ren stalking towards her in that menacing helmet.  She saw herself pacing around his beaten and scarred form on the snow on Starkiller.  Then the dream would change and she was forced to relive incidents in Jakku, ones that had haunted her for years.  Her dreams were the same as always, yet different somehow.  She at once had the feeling of being both within and outside of herself as she drifted through the scenes, but she could not understand why.  

     As light began to brighten the sky, her thoughts drifted back to her conversation with Luke the previous day.  He would expect a decision from her soon, and deep down she already knew what that decision was.  She sighed as she realised it wasn’t really a decision - not really.  As much as Luke had insisted that it was her choice, she couldn’t see how she couldn’t accept the call that lightsaber and accompanying visions had demanded of her.  Rey desperately needed to understand this  _power_ that she had so recently discovered in herself, although another part of her feared it would only set her further apart from others.  Would she be condemning herself to a lifetime of loneliness after a childhood bereft of love, kindness and companionship?  

     Her meditation yesterday had been surprising.  She had settled down on a rock overlooking the sea and struggled at first to find a comfortable position for both her body and mind. But finally, when she made herself recall the feeling the island had always given her, she felt its energy flow through her.  The feeling was indescribable in many ways, but she had felt oddly at one with everything around her, as if she were part of the island and it was part of her.  She felt as if she had expanded outward, her body humming with light and power.  That something, both inside and outside of her, had turned toward her in interest, nudging her, and for a moment the energy inside of her felt oddly magnified before settling down again.  

     When she had opened her eyes, she found herself surprised to find that a few hours had passed in her solitary stance.  When she turned back to the hut, she had seen Luke watching her with a mixture of curiosity, wonder, and was it…trepidation?

 

**************

 

     A bit later, she and Luke stood in the small but abundant garden Luke had raised himself.   He told her of his days as a young man on Tatooine as a moisture farmer, craving for adventure and escape from the endless monotony that were his days on the dusty planet.  He had always known he was meant for something more, but he had no idea what form his cravings would take.  

     Rey listened carefully as she touched and stroked the plants in the garden.  They were blindingly beautiful to her, their greens and colours magnified by some internal light.  The palms of her hands felt oddly warm as her fingers moved towards the plants, and Luke again watched with interest.  She understood somehow that he was assessing her, trying to understand what power was contained within the young slip of a girl who had joined him.  

     “How did you finally leave Tatooine?” 

     “Fate forced my hand, as it were.  The day Imperial forces came looking for the R2 unit, they murdered my aunt and uncle.  There was nothing left to keep me there,”  Luke said, closing his eyes meditatively as he showed the image of what he saw that day to Rey.  Her eyes squeezed shut with the pain of what she witnessed - two burnt out corpses laying on the dusty surface in front of their strange dome-like home, and framed by not one, but two suns.  

     “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  

     “As am I,”  he said, pausing to give the plants some water, calmness emanating from him as ever.  A long silence fell between them as each were lost to their own thoughts.  Rey’s mind whirled as she thought of the parallels in the bleakness the two of them had faced in their young lives.  Luke lost his guardians, his only family, as just a young man on a desert planet, and she had been left abandoned on a desert planet as a young girl.  Both were thrown into an unknown life because of the appearance of a droid who carried with them more destiny than either could have imagined. Kylo Ren, on the other hand, had abandoned and betrayed his own family in the worst possible way…  Her anger mounted as she thought back to what she had witnessed. 

     “You are not the first one who has offered to teach me,” she blurted out suddenly.  She couldn't understand _why_ her thoughts perpetually returned to Kylo Ren, but she could not keep him out of her mind for very long.  Something inside of her kept taking her back to that place, to him.  It pushed, it nudged, it compelled.  

     “Oh?”  

     Rey’s cast her hazel gaze down at the large and soft yellow blossoms of what Luke had assured her would eventually become gourd-like vegetables.  She examined the yellow powdery substance that had come off onto her hand for a long time before finally lifting her gaze.  She let out a long breath.  “Kylo Ren.  He offered to teach me on Starkiller, during our duel.  I thought he might force me over the cliff and finish me like that, but instead he told me that I needed a teacher.  That he could show me the ways of the Force.”  

     “Ah.  Did he now...?” Luke asked rhetorically, as he worked to digest that information.  “And your answer?”

     “I kicked his ass with your lightsaber,”  she said matter-of-factly, grinning broadly.  A slow grin spread across his face, lighting up the otherwise solemn features.

     “I bet that’s not how he thought that conversation would go,” he said with a deep chuckle.

     “No, probably not,”  she said with a giggle.  Luke looked off into the distance, shaking his head bemusedly.  When the deep blue eyes met her’s again, Rey was reminded of that feeling of resignation in him, mingled now with the tiniest sliver of something resembling hope.  His hands rested on his hips as he gave Rey a curious glance.  

     “Would you mind sharing with me exactly what happened on Starkiller?  You can tell me in your own words or you can share it with me through the Force?  However you are comfortable,” Luke asked, his expression becoming more serious.  

     Rey brushed her hand across her face as she recalled those moments in the snowy woods.  They were never far from her consciousness, always demanding something of her.   She nodded.  “Maybe its better if you saw as I did?” she asked quietly, knowing she could trust Luke implicitly.  He bowed his head humbly, reaching his hand out to just beside her face.  Rey opened her eyes and, instinctively, opened her mind up to him.  His invasion - if she could call it that - felt like a tide washing gently over her.  

     She showed him the interrogation, how she had witnessed Han Solo’s death at the hands of his only son, and of the encounter with the crazed man in the snowy forest of Starkiller.  Luke’s expression remained neutral throughout, only wincing when he saw the fall of his dear old friend.  Rey also felt, rather than saw, Luke’s heart surge with remorse when he took in his nephew’s stricken expression after his despicable act of depravity.  

     As Luke’s hand came slowly back to his side, his expression filled with the compassion and kindness that she now knew were so deeply ingrained in his soul.  “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  His hand came up to rub his face tiredly.  

     “I am, too,” she whispered, her tears falling freely again.  Luke had now taken a seat on the garden bench, bending forward to capture his face in his hands.  Rey couldn’t know for sure, but her impression was that he was taking a moment to say a few words to his departed friend.  She remained standing quietly and respectfully, as her heart cried for the millionth time for Han Solo, a man she had known for such a short time, but who had touched her so deeply.  

     Luke glanced up, his blues watery.  “Rey, do you know anything of the Jedi and the Sith?”  

     Rey shrugged, shaking her head slowly.  “What little I have heard are rumours that I thought to be legends.  I thought you were a myth when I heard the stories of you.” 

     Luke contemplated the girl standing before him, looking as if he was trying to work something out for himself.  He pressed his fingers together, one hand mechanical and the other, flesh and blood.  She watched him curiously, fidgeting with her own fingers.

     “Why do you keep a robot prosthetic?  I once saw a man on Jakku with a prosthetic leg, made to look exactly like his own?’”  

     “It’s a reminder to me everyday.  Of where I have been, and of where I could go,”  he said softly.  “A reminder that whatever the myths and legends say about the hero that is Luke Skywalker, that he has also walked with temptation, has allowed the Dark Side in, like his father before him.” 

     Rey drew her breath in sharply, not understanding what Luke meant by his words.  Stories she had heard told of his heroism in destroying the death star as a young and incredibly talented pilot, and of him facing and cutting down the Emperor and his evil apprentice were surely not exaggerated?  How could Luke Skywalker, with the immense kindness and compassion he had already shown her have ever delved into the dark side…like his nephew? 

     “It’s all true, Rey.  I did all the things you’ve heard about.  I destroyed the first death star.  I helped to defeat the Emperor - but it was my father - ultimately weakened by my attack on him, that overcame the Emperor and destroyed him, and died soon after as a result of his grievous injuries.”

     Rey shook her head, looking at Luke in confusion.  “You attacked your own father?  Anakin Skywalker?”  

     Luke gave her a gentle smile.  “Rey, my father was Darth Vader.  Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader when he turned to the dark side.”  

     Her gasp of horror was entirely too audible as she stared back at the man seated in front of her.  “Darth Vader?”

     “How do you think I felt when I found out?”  he asked, his voice expressing an ironic amusement.  

     “But that means that Leia is also, —”  she whispered, her mind reeling as she wondered how the two kindest people she had ever met could have arisen from the blood of the most brutal killer that had ever ruled the galaxy.  

     “It is true.  It’s something that we never broadcasted, though it did become news at some point, shortly before Ben turned himself,”  Luke said, his tone betraying a deep regret.   “And like all things, it thankfully became old and mostly forgotten news again, but not before the legacy of Darth Vader cast its shadow upon the galaxy again.”  

     Rey rubbed her face, tiredly as Luke had done only moments before, all the while trying to understand what the Jedi master was telling her.  She was certain there was a message in there for her.  “You're telling me all of this for a reason?”  she half-stated.  

     Luke nodded grimly as he watched her face with a peculiar expression.  “No matter how far down the path of the Dark Side you go, there is always a way back.  There is always that choice.”  

     She took an exasperated breath.  “You are speaking of Kylo Ren.  You believe he can turn back.” Her voice was flat, as she struggled to not show Luke how much she doubted that.  

     Luke sighed resignedly.  “Yes, him, too,”  he finally said.  Rey’s eyebrows rose quizzically.

     “You’ve… got something on your face,”  he said as he watched her with that Skywalker intensity, “I think you must have rubbed your face with the pollen on your hands.”  

     Rey’s hand reached up to touch her face and she saw some of that powdery soft substance come off onto her fingers.  She moved to peer into the nearby bucket of water and saw the yellow streaked across her face diagonally, from across her eyebrow, to her right cheek and jaw.  She recoiled as she saw the scar she had marked Kylo Ren with reflected there on her own face.  Rey began splashing the cool water desperately onto her skin, erasing every last trace of that unwanted reminder of him.  When she was finally satisfied, she turned to look at Luke once again, meeting his wry gaze.  

     “I will take you up on your offer, of training, I mean, if it still stands,”  she said, finally finding her voice.  Luke bowed his head in quiet acceptance.


	3. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to check what our favourite fallen Jedi has been up to!

     Kylo Ren sat uncharacteristically docile in his quarters, contemplating the stars as they whizzed past his windows. Weeks had passed since the destruction of Starkiller. Weeks of recovery, of torture, and of torment. His finger traced the healing scar on his face - time in a bacta tank had closed the wound significantly, but he could still feel the slightly raised ridge of flesh across his face, and the too taut, shiny skin beneath. He breathed in deeply as his insides twisted in anger, sadness, and hate. His body - made strong by Snoke’s trainings over the years - was healing, but the fabric of his mind was tattered to shreds.

     He had survived this time - but only by the smallest margin. This gave him no comfort, no sense of relief. He had not been afraid to die as Starkiller exploded around him. He would have surrendered to a grave with his father in the exploded ruins of the base-planet. How fitting it would be that they would be together in the eternity of death when they had spent so little time together alive. But that contemptible General Hux, as ever the thorn in his side, had come to his rescue —that annoyed sneer telling him that it was only by their master’s orders that he had even bothered to find him.

      _“That’s ok, Ren, you can thank me later for this,” the ginger General had said as he coolly perused Kylo’s grievous injuries. “Seeing as being defeated by a scrap of a girl is humiliation enough for one day, having to be rescued by me - a mere mortal without all those magical powers, is just salt in those those tremendous wounds. Life can be so poetic,”_ he had purred gloatingly.

     Normally Kylo would not have tolerated that kind of impertinence, and would have demonstrated how easily he could end that monster’s pathetic life. In fact, if there was one person in the galaxy he would thoroughly enjoy killing, it would be Hux. But instead he had chosen to trace the girl’s departure as she blazed off in the Millennium Falcon, the irony of that fact also not escaping him. She was undoubtedly on the way to see General Organa, and then, Luke Skywalker. And the fool crouched in front of him had no idea what he was talking about as his fancy space weapon collapsed around them. His pedestrian mind couldn’t understand that the girl held more power in her little finger than this scheming clown could ever accumulate if he built a lifetime’s worth of planet destroyers.

      _“Armitage…fuck off,” he had said through gritted teeth, before allowing the darkness to take him_.

     Kylo Ren stood up now, leaning his head on crossed arms against the top frame of the window as his eyes searched the stars for something. In these private, guarded moments he let his mind go to the place that pulled at him, its call compelling. The only place that gave him some relief from the never-ending trail of images and voices that had left him feeling….shattered. He saw the island the girl had seen. He knew somehow that she was there, as he recognised the feeling of that place from her mind. His eyes pressed closed, acknowledging that something inside of him yearned to experience such a feeling himself.   _Serenity, peace_ , a sense of belonging to a place, even if momentary, even if for just a single breath.  He rubbed his eyes against the fabric of his sleeves tiredly, thinking that those first two words he had invoked sounded uncomfortably close to the Jedi Code. Ren berated himself for craving such a ridiculous thing, especially now as he had passed the test Snoke had laid out for him. His master would punish him mercilessly for this weakness, but there it was, something - both inside and outside of him - that he had held onto as he endured his recovery and more of Snoke’s brutal training.  It was from this place, sheltered from his master’s relentless invasions, that he had found the will to continue even as part of his soul cried out for the most permanent stop to this endless suffering. He closed his eyes suddenly remembering Han Solo’s face as it had gone from horrified, to betrayed, and finally, to tender and forgiving.  And then there was the feeling of his father’s fingers on his skin, on the very place his new scar assuredly took its place.  Han’s hand had marked him more deeply than the searing heat of the scavenger’s lightsaber.

     Tears pricked the back of his eyes as those final moments cycled through him again and again, as if any train of thought he followed would inevitably take him back there. His nostrils flared slightly as he looked down to the side, uncomfortable with the suffering he saw so clearly reflected in the duraglass of the windows. Nothing was the same, and certainly nothing was as Snoke had promised him. Since his return to the _Finalizer_ , even his quarters felt oddly alien to him. They had never felt like home, but they had been something of his own at least, and he didn’t own much. The only comfort it gave him now was that it was a place to be away from that insufferable Hux and the other senior officers…and to pour over the records, the holopads and books he now studied obsessively.

     A plan had begun to form in his mind since Starkiller. Kylo smirked bitterly as he thought about the Supreme Leader’s almost irrational fear of the old Jedi, especially now as Skywalker was most certainly training another powerful Jedi. This fear bordered on paranoia, though Ren had never before construed it as such. What he had viewed previously as his master’s prudence and wisdom in thoroughly exterminating the Jedi, he now saw as a deep and personal fear. Kylo Ren had discovered a _weakness_ in the Supreme Leader, revealed through the smallest tremors in the Force that Kylo had sensed during their last few sessions. He could not understand the depth of that fear, however. Skywalker had certainly not been powerful enough to detect Snoke’s presence in his young Padawan’s mind, and in fact, he had never seen the old Jedi do anything out of the ordinary for a so-called master of the Force. He was always so calm and subdued in his force use, whereas Snoke never hesitated to demonstrate the scope of his power.

    Kylo's scheming thoughts were interrupted by a feeling of energy and power flooding his body and senses. An image of a small grey stone levitating suddenly flashed across his mind. It trembled in the air for a moment before free-falling to the ground definitively. _Frustration_. His eyebrow quirked, but he shook off the feeling.

     That damned scavenger, he thought through gritted teeth. Everything went to hell as soon as she had entered the picture.  His mind reeled, trying to come to terms with how in a matter of mere hours, his best laid plans had come apart. He was supposed to determine Luke Skywalker’s location, and to hunt him down. He would kill him if the Jedi would not cooperate with him, and not give him the answers he so desperately needed.  And then he would probably kill him anyways. It was what his master desperately wanted, after all, and it was something that the pathetic General Hux could never accomplish on his own. The scourge of the cursed Jedi and their backwards ways would be finished. But that was all before she showed up - the one he had _seen_ by his side, an equal to him in power and ability.  How ignorant of the Force she was, how much like an unpolished gem.

     Ren went to his desk and picked up one of the holopads he had been studying. Process of elimination would lead him to where she was. It was a tiring process, but he wasn’t a stranger to research.  The one thing he credited Skywalker for was for inspiring his search for Jedi and Sith relics.  Now he had been scanning the characteristics of known planets on the outer rim for days, looking for one that matched what he had seen in her mind.

     Again. A flash in his mind as the grey rock rose, quivered, and fell. He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, concentrating. _Like this_ …he said to no one one in particular, stretching out his arm and willing the rock to rise from the ground and remain hovering. After a few long moments, he released it gently to the ground. _Confusion_. He snatched his hand back quickly to his side as if he’d burnt it. What was that? What had compelled him to do that? It was almost as if he was seeing —

     An then, a faintest whisper across his consciousness. A voice, distinctly male. _Force bond._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will start to pick-up from here as the bond works its way into Kylo Ren and Rey's consciousness. I see Kylo as being more aware of it due to his training and experience, and plus he has started to get the tiniest bit of help.  
> ;-)


	4. Of Another Time and Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those who asked for more of Leia's POV, here it is. I hope you enjoy this instalment and we'll be back to our two space bunnies very soon, I promise!

     Somewhere else in the galaxy, many light years away, stood the mother to the man who became Kylo Ren.  She watched through duraglass as the hero called Finn moved through a series of gruelling exercises meant to retrain his body to full capacity.  The team of medics who worked with him had promised he would eventually regain his strength and abilities, but not without his dedicated efforts.  General Organa smiled encouragingly at the young man - he had already come such a long way from the nearly catastrophic injuries her son had inflicted upon him.  She had sat with him every single day since his arrival, remarking on his incredible drive, and all the while feeling cursedly responsible that he should be in this position in the first place.  

     “What an extraordinary young man,” she said softly to herself.  She could understand Rey’s affection for him, despite their short acquaintance.  There was a strength and spirit in him that Leia couldn’t help but notice.  And something else too, nearly tangible, though she would have to remember to ask Luke about it when she saw her brother again.  The medic nodded towards her, dragging her away from her thoughts by motioning that she could now join them.  After exchanging a few words in praise of the former stormtrooper’s progress, the doctor left them alone.  

     “Finn, you are coming along really well.  I couldn’t believe how easily you moved through your exercises.  You are a determined and brave young man,”  she beamed.  

     Finn gave her a wide smile, his brown eyes lighting up, and Leia took in his face with fascination.  She was struck by the beauty of youth as she looked at the man in front of her, not much younger than her own son.  She wondered if Ben’s eyes could still also light up his entire face as they used to so very long ago?

     “Thanks,” Finn said, shrugging.  “I feel a million times better.  But that’s thanks to you and what you’ve done for me.  I don’t know if I can ever repay your kindness.”  

     She scoffed gently.  “No Finn, we are forever in your debt.  What you did for us - well there are not words to express it.  And what’s worse, you nearly paid for it with your life.”

     “I only did what was right.”  

     Leia’s face took on a solemn look, her brown eyes misting over.  “What you did reminds me of another time when an unlikely group of rebels pulled off the most audacious stunt ever, gaining a victory over the Empire.  It was such an exhilarating time.  Of course, it’s so different now.  At least for me…,”  a pained expression flitted momentarily across her regal features, as she struggled to not collapse under the weight of her nostalgia.  She was never so talkative about her private thoughts.

     Finn fidgeted uncertainly, most certainly suspecting that she was thinking of her son, of Kylo Ren.  She and Finn had spoken together many times during her daily visits but had carefully avoided that giant Hutt in the room.  “So to what do I owe this visit from my favourite General?”

     She gave a small laugh. “Seeing as Hux is the only other General you know, I’m not sure _that_ is much of a compliment,”  her eyebrow raised as she looked at him pointedly.  Finn immediately straightened up, looking as if he was kicking himself for saying something so poorly thought out.  In the First Order, he would have paid dearly for addressing authority in such a flippant manner.  

     She reached out and gave his shoulder a motherly squeeze.  “At ease, Finn.  This is not the First Order.  I was only trying to lighten the mood.  Apparently, not so successfully.”  

     He relaxed visibly as her words trickled in.  “Of course I knew that.”  

     She gave him another amused look before her expression grew serious.  “Finn, I know I promised to leave you alone while you complete your recovery but I’m afraid that things are developing and I need to ask your help on something.  A few things, actually.”

     “General Organa, you can ask me anything.”

     “Leia, please.  The first thing we need to know is if you know whether there are many more stormtroopers like you?  I mean, those that aren’t necessarily with the First Order cause?”  she asked. The young man standing before her recoiled slightly in surprise, leaning a little more onto his sleek cane.  

     “Well it’s not like I discussed what I planned to do with anyone.  I really didn’t plan it.  That evening in Taunul, I just couldn’t carry through the order to commit a massacre.  I couldn’t take the sounds of the screaming, the fear I felt in the air, in the faces of the villagers, and the cries of the babies and children.  It just wasn’t right.  Something broke inside of me.”  

     “Who did the order come from?”

     Finn drew a shaky breath.  That damned Hutt was back again.   “Directly from the commander, ma’am.” 

     Leia shot him a quizzical look.  

     “From Kylo Ren,” he finally said, visibly cringing as he said it. 

      Leia’s face remained impassive as she absorbed the information. She was well aware of her son’s reputation, and this was only confirmation of what she didn’t dare to think about except when in the privacy of her own quarters, searching for the sleep that just would not come.  

     “I’m sorry,”  Finn said, shifting uncomfortably.  

     “You don’t know the half of it, Finn.”  

     “Why do you want to know about the stormtroopers?”  he asked, clearly desperate to change the topic.  Leia sighed, leaning back against the wall.  A long pause followed as she considered her next words.  

     “We would like to give an opportunity, or create it, if you will, for others who are like-minded to join our cause.  If you broke free of the constraints of the stormtrooper programme, there must be others who are wanting, and potentially, willing to as well.  We can go on exchanging fire power back and forth until we blow each other into oblivion, but none of that is lasting.  What we need is change from the inside of the First Order.”

     Finn's features moved from surprise to disbelief quickly.  “I wish I could help you.  But you have to understand, we are trained like human drones.  Individuality is strongly discouraged.  Breaking from rules, questioning of authority, all of those things are just not allowed.  At every direction we turn, there is only indoctrination backed up by severe punishment for stepping out of line.”  

     Leia nodded.  “But there must be records of those who are sent out to reconditioning…,”  she said softly, but firmly.  Finn nodded slowly, as understanding dawned upon him.  

     “You want me to become a stormtrooper again.”  

     “I would like you to infiltrate the First Order _posing_ as a stormtrooper.”  

     Finn drew back, rubbing his eyes tiredly.  “What you are asking is a suicide mission.”

     “It is dangerous, yes, but you wouldn’t be alone.”  

     “Who?”

     “Poe Dameron.  He’s the one who proposed you.”  

     “Poe?”  

     Leia nodded, drawing a deep breath.  “There’s more.”  

     “I kind of figured,” Finn’s voice now more of a groan than anything.

     “We have received word that are uprisings against the Resistance happening on some of our planets, because supplies are not reaching them.  We have sent the supplies, as we always do, but something is happening to them.  After the destruction of the Hosnian System, there are those who think we didn’t do enough, or at least enough in time to prevent tragedy.  It seems they fear that they will meet with the same fate, only through slower, more torturous means.  Starvation, deprivation.” 

     “And you suspect the First Order is involved?”  

     Leia nodded.  “My instinct says yes, though we have no proof of that yet.  I am sure that whatever is happening must be via a third party.  We need to know what is going on, and to get supplies to those people who are suffering. I can’t even bear to think what they are going through. And hungry people are desperate people, and it will become a struggle to maintain order.  We don’t have much time. ”  

     Finn’s shoulders sagged under the weight of the news and Leia watched his emotions play across the face.  She hadn’t had extensive Force training but she understood the conflict going on inside of him.  There was the part of him who also couldn’t bear to think about the suffering people were undergoing.  Of families who would face death and tragedy at the hands of his former organisation.  But there was the another big part of him who never wanted to be anywhere near the First Order again, for those same very reasons.  He knew better than anyone what brutality they were capable of.  

    “I guess Kylo Ren is in for a big grounding when you get your hands on him,”  Finn finally said in weak jest, though the way he caught himself showed that he hadn’t meant to voice the thought aloud.  The General’s pained expression had him gulping nervously. 

     She reached out and patted his knee.  “It’s okay Finn.  I know that you know the truth of Kylo Ren.  About who he really is.  Not many do, and I would prefer you keep it that way.  But I want you to know that the hardest thing I have ever faced in my life is to be a mother.  Should you become a parent one day…  What I mean to say is...that as the leader of the Rebellion, as Senator, and General, I have faced difficult decisions my entire life.  The kinds of decisions which impact the lives of so many.  But I have never felt the uncertainty I felt when faced with raising and guiding that one small life, whose well-being and trust lay entirely in my own hands.  I hope you will do a better job than I did,”  she sighed, as Finn witnessed the usually strong and stoic General now with sadness and defeatedness etched into her features.  Moments passed in silence.  

    Leia gave Finn a weak smile.  “But going back to the grounding, there has been nothing I have wanted more than to see him again.  To look upon his face, now the face of a man I haven't seen in many years.  To hold him in my arms once again.”  She didn’t know why these words poured out of her, but something inside her told her that it was important that Finn understood the depth of feeling for her son, the depth of a mother’s love.   “But given what he’s done,  I think the bottom of a Sarlacc pit would be called for at this point,”  she said, her voice unsteady and her words uncharacteristically raw in front of this near stranger of a young man

     He looked confused.  “Sarlacc pit?”

     “Of course you wouldn’t know about the Sarlacc.  Remind me to tell you sometime.  But for now, I know I’ve asked a lot of you so think about what I said and let me know your decision.  We need to act quickly, though, so don’t take too much time,”  she rose now, squeezing his hand.  “I completely understand if you don’t want anything to do with any of this.  And if that is the case, we will arrange you safe passage to a nice place where you can build a new life.  And by the way, Rey is doing just fine.  I know you always ask,”  Leia gave him a small smile and made a move to leave, not failing to notice the the brightening of his handsome face at the mention of Rey.

     “General?”

     “Leia, please.” 

     “Uh, Leia.  I thought - um - that you would like to know something.  I already told you that in the First Order, they are brutal to those who disobey orders or who don't do their job well.  We’re sent for reconditioning, and I’ve seen what that means.  It sure isn’t pretty,”  Finn paused for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts.  "I'm no fan of your - uh - I mean Kylo Ren.  He’s angry all of the time, loses control quickly, and everyone is downright terrified of him. I think that even Hux is scared of him, though he would never show it.   And then there’s what happened on Starkiller.”

     Leia’s lips set into a grim line as the appalling evidence of her son's violent ways was laid out before her, but she nodded for him to continue.  

     Finn took a deep breath.  “See, the thing is…the night that I disobeyed my orders and choose not to shoot at the villagers in Taunul, he saw me.  He looked straight at me and we stared at each other for a bit.  

     “And what did he do?” Leia drew out the words with a slow cringe.  

     “He let me go.”  

     Leia swallowed, digesting yet another piece of information in the long list of contradictions that was her son.  She stared at Finn's warm brown eyes for another few long moments, before giving a small nod of thanks and leaving the room.  As soon as she was out of sight of anyone, she took her face into her hands, fingers tracing the line of her eyebrows.  Tears flowed freely as she heard Finn’s words over and over again -  _he let me go, he let me go, he let me go._ The words taunted her with the meaning she so longed to assign to them. _That_ was the good she had felt in him, that she had always felt in him.  _That_ was her Ben, her son, the boy she had loved from before he was even born.  She knew that soul and the light that it contained.  But how could she have been so wrong?  How, with that little bit of light still left inside, had he cut down his own father and destroyed everything?  

     “General Organa.  You are needed immediately in the mission room.  Some new information has arrived,”  was the urgent voice on her comlink. 

     Hastily she wiped her tears away.  A deep breath followed, and a steeling.  Or at least an attempt at such.

     “I’ll be right there,” she said even as every place in her body screamed out to go and lie down someplace and…rest.   The trouble was, she thought to herself, she was always there, and she had always been _there_. 


	5. In the Shadow of Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving along with our angsty space bunnies. Enjoy.

     “I have.  Had enough.  Of this force shit!”   Rey stormed up to Luke, and spit out the words without any of her customary greetings.  She threw down her things on the rustic table between them and raked her hands through her dishevelled hair, fingers trembling.  Luke sat back and watched the quivering mess in front of him, feeling her energy vibrating, almost fizzing around her in anger.   

     “What is it, Rey.  What’s troubling you?” he asked quietly, still observing.  Always observing.

     “It’s him!”  she hissed, hazel eyes flashing angrily.  “Somehow he is in my mind.  Somehow he can see what I am doing.  Somehow he is bloody everywhere,”  she spat.  “I am sick of it.  I touched that lightsaber and it turned my whole world upside down.  I just want to go back to my old life - it was simple, straightforward.   Either I got good parts or I didn’t.  Either I ate or I didn’t.  Not this - this - visions, nightmares - not knowing when he’s just going to show up.”

     Luke rubbed his face tiredly, fingers running across his eyebrows.  “I suppose you’re speaking about my nephew?”  

     She nodded, her lip trembling under the strain of her emotions.  

     “Ben is able to speak to you?”  

     She shrugged - it wasn’t exactly speaking, it was more like sensing each other.  

     Luke’s shoulders sagged slightly as he took a deep breath.  “So that’s it,” he said, nodding slowly.  “I suspected.”  

     Rey gave him a tremulous glance.  “You knew?”  

     Luke gave a small laugh now, shaking his head.  “I didn’t know what I knew.  But I can sense his energy here, sometimes very strongly, in instances.  Intertwined with your’s.”  

     “Are you able to talk to him?”  she asked, calming the slightest bit.  

     “He shut me out a long time ago.  And I have had to reciprocate, knowing that Snoke was desperate to rid the galaxy of Jedi.  I could not let them find me here.  I had to shut myself off from Leia too, for the same reason.  If they somehow got into her mind, and she knew where I was, they would find me.”  

     Rey lowered herself into an opposing, equally as rustic chair, her mind churning with doubts, and with many more questions than she had answers for.    “But Leia misses you so much.  She needs you, especially now.  How could Jedi business be more important than your own sister?”  

     “I’ve asked myself that so many times, but I always come to the same answer.  It always leads me right back here.  For now.”  

     Rey shot him a dubious look.  “But shouldn’t you be fighting for the people you love, for the cause you believe in?  That’s what all the stories about you said?”  

     If Luke was surprised or offended by the accusation in Rey’s words, he didn’t show it.  But in his pause, Rey felt him considering how he would respond carefully.  “There is more than one way to fight, Rey.  We each have our role to play in the bigger web. My path is not Leia’s path, nor is it your path, even though they may intersect for a time.”  His face spread into a wry grin as he took in Rey’s perplexed expression.  “It’s a lot to understand, and you’ve been thrust right into the middle of it with little preparation.  But you are doing so well, Rey.  You’ve no idea.”  

     “But it’s so not…straightforward.  Is this what I am to expect from now on?  I feel like I am being handed puzzle after puzzle, each one bigger than the last,”  she said in a plaintive tone.  “I’ve always been such a practical person, and I never had much patience for this kind of…stuff.   I grew up in the desert, scavenging, for Kriff’s sake.  There was no subtlety there.  It was either scavenge or die.”

     A small incline of Luke’s head acknowledged her words, and then a deep breath.  “It is as complex as it is mysterious.  I agree with all of that.  But at the same time, it is so _simple_.  Put your trust in the Force, and it will answer you.  It doesn’t make mistakes.  Ask yourself - are you meant to be here right now?  And then listen.”

     Luke reached across the table and took Rey’s hand in his own.  Rey’s eyes fluttered closed as she felt the Force flow through her as never before, as if a wave of light surrounded her in every direction.   The hand which held hers was calloused, gentle, physically unremarkable in any way,  and yet it positively radiated power.  

     She exhaled deeply as the answer came back with startling clarity.  If she tried to move her energy away from Ahch-to and Luke, she felt resistance,  as if paddling upstream.  When she turned back towards the island, towards Luke and her training, the energy flowed over her as a gentle tide, carrying her with it.   

     “Yes,”  she whispered shakily.  The answer was unequivocally a yes, although her emotions of just moments before remained suspended there on the periphery.  They were no different - tied inexplicably to _that man_ who had become a living nightmare.  As Luke withdrew his hand, Rey already found herself longing for that sense of purpose he had somehow channeled towards her. 

     “As we fall asleep, or sometimes fall into a daydream, our consciousness takes us to that place that connects to us the whole.  You don’t need me to show you.  You already know it.   Our troubles, emotions, circumstances, those things we face each day separate us from that knowing.  But that’s why it is necessary to re-establlish your connection to the Force, through meditation, through the exercises we work though each day.  That way you will learn to trust it to guide your actions and your choices,”  Luke fixed her with a pointed look as he spoke.  Rey squirmed a bit in her chair.  So he had noticed she was avoiding her meditations…since that last strange incident the other day.  

     “I’m afraid,”  Rey said simply, her eyes casting down guiltily to the stone floor.  

     “Fear is normal, it is human.  It keeps us alive.  But then you know all about the survival instinct, don’t you Rey?  Search your feelings, remind yourself how you’ve made it this far.”  

      Rey shook her head, feeling a vague sense of shame.  “I’m sorry Luke, you must feel like you’re going in circles with me. We had almost the same discussion my first days here.”  

     The blue eyes smiled warmly at her.  “Nearly, but not really the same, is it?   Things have progressed, wouldn’t you say?”  There was almost a twinkle in those usually solemn eyes.    “Perhaps now you can tell me what’s made you so upset just before?”  

 

*******

 

     Kylo Ren withdrew from his meditation quickly, feeling as if his hand surged with the thrum of a familiar energy.  _Skywalker_.  It came to him instantly and he rose, staring at his hand which still tingled as if every cell inside vibrated wildly  How was _that_ even possible?  He studied his long, pale fingers carefully, flexing each as he attempted to still his tumultuous mind.  Ren was now sure that the scavenger was with Luke, just as he had suspected.  That was as clear as a natural kyber crystal.  But there was also a message in this for him - of that he was certain.  He could feel it in his bones.  What was that Jedi playing at?  

     The dark knight also knew now that he and the scavenger were connected by a force bond.  In the intervening days he had read about them extensively, and had come away certain that this connection - however unorthodox according to the ancient lore - had been forged unintentionally between them on Starkiller.  It was in its nascent stages, and stronger on his side than hers as to be expected by his more developed connection to the Force.  It troubled him, to be sure, and he certainly didn’t welcome any further intrusions on his consciousness - but it was also so _fascinating_.  And frustratingly enough, while he actively tried to understand it, the stubborn scavenger was limiting his progress - pulling back, fighting him at every turn.  He gritted his teeth as he thought about her.  How could she not understand how important this was?  The potential that this contained?

     That same day, he had been sitting in meditation and was surprised to begin seeing the so-called padawan practising her lightsaber forms.  She was someplace very green, but not exactly lush.  He observed her in that strange way he’d become accustomed to - as if he was looking within and without, at the same time.  The scavenger’s form was coming along, but her feet were in completely the wrong stance and would leave her vulnerable during a duel, and so he imagined himself nudging the back of her legs with his own, pushing her into the right position.  It was something he had done many times with the Knights of Ren during their training, and it came naturally to him as their master.  She had startled and looked around herself immediately, but had quickly regained her composure and returned to her original position.  He sighed and pushed her wayward form into the proper position again before a wave of anger and frustration hit him as surely as it was his own before the connection went…fuzzy, for lack of a better word.  Her energy was red and inflamed, though he could no longer see what it was that she was doing. Then more anger, abrupt motion - the impressions imprinted themselves upon him - followed suddenly by the deepest sensation of calm.  Another energy imposed itself - stable, static, just there.  

     Kylo had nearly turned away when he’d felt that energy wash over him for an instant.  _Cool, colours of blue and green, peace._   Moving with the flow, and simply being.  Truth be told, he had never felt that before in his life.  In the background he saw the outline of buildings, in shadows of light, if that even made sense. There was something in their silhouette that struck him. _Ancient Jedi Temples.  The first_.  

     He crossed his austere quarters and picked up his holopad, recalling something he had seen during his many hours of research. He glanced through images rapidly, searching for the one.  It took awhile, and as he did, he couldn’t also help but to remember the rush of the scavenger’s anger.  He almost laughed aloud as he thought about her futile attempt to train as a Jedi.  She was no Jedi, and his former master was a fool if he thought he could extinguish that deep-seated anger in her.  A triumphant grin spread across his face, pulling at his scar uncomfortably. The record he was searching for came up on his screen.  _Ahch-to_.  The answer had been there all along.   

 

*******

 

     Luke and Rey now walked alongside each other, crossing the short distance to the ancient temples.  The closer she came to them, the greater she felt their call, drawing her in and expanding around her.  It reminded her of the feeling on Takodana that had led her into Maz’s basement - this sensation entirely outside of her control, beckoning.  But she would not obey that call now, as she had maintained her respectful distance from the temples during her stay.  Despite everything they had just discussed, she was not ready to face anything like that yet.  Not again.  She was fighting the urge to turn back and run.  

     The Jedi looked over to her, sensing her hesitation and inclined his head.  “You sense how strong the Force is with this place.”  His only answer was her wide-eyed expression.  He grinned, shaking his head.  “And you are not ready.”  

     Rey shook her head.  “I need more time.  I am trying to come to terms with all of this.  It still isn’t easy to know that it’s actually _a thing_ that _he_ can be in my head.”  

     Luke had listened carefully as Rey had described the “incidents” as she called them, keen to have her describe everything in her own words. 

     “If it’s any comfort to you, Rey, I don’t think he means you any harm.  He is testing this out.  Ben was always an excellent student and he is extremely intelligent.  My sense is that he is…curious.”

     “Well he can satisfy his curiosity elsewhere.  And not at the expense of my sanity,” her words were bitter.  The calm she had felt with Luke such a short while ago had vanished as she waged an internal battle with herself, or with _him_ , or both.  She really didn’t know.

     “Rey, my nephew is possibly the most headstrong person I have ever known, and keep in mind that I kept company with Han, Leia, and Chewbacca for a very long time,” his face again betrayed a wry sort of amusement tempered with a touch of nostalgia.  “He has it in mind that he can teach you.  I’m afraid that you might not have convinced him to toss that idea as thoroughly as you thought.”  

     “But he must know that I am with you.  That you are my teacher now.” 

      “And there are things that I can teach you and there are things that I can’t,”  he said, a tone of resignation in his voice.  

     Rey gave Luke a look in equal measures of doubt, bewilderment, and exasperation.  “What does that even mean?  Do all of you speak like this?  You Force people?  Can’t you just spell things out a little more?”

     Luke chuckled deeply now.  “Clearly you’ve never met Master Yoda.  Figure out, what he was saying, I had to.”  He said, his voice taking on a warbled, gravelly, strained throat kind of quality.  A double clear of his throat, in the same tone, followed. 

     Rey looked at her Master incredulously, before a burst of giggles arose involuntarily out of her. “He did not sound like that!?”

     “Oh yes he does.  Remind me to show you a holo-vid sometime and you can tell me if that wasn’t dead on.  Or who knows, he may just decide to make an appearance one of these days.”  

     “So, you’re telling me that all this kind of stuff is totally normal?   Master Yoda can talk to you and Kylo Ren can just show up and nudge me whenever he feels like it.”  

     “More or less.” 

     Rey threw her arms up in exasperation.  This conversation wasn’t over by any means, but she had had enough for the moment.  


	6. The Chamber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a little Hux and Kylo Ren, as our favourite dark sider puts his plans in motion. Bonus points to any readers who catch the references to the original trilogy!

      “What is that you want to say, Hux?  Clearly you won’t be pleased until you spit it out, so let’s dispense with the banter,”   Kylo Ren hissed impatiently as he and the General stood in the audience chamber at the behest of Snoke.  He found himself hating that room and the way it seemed to swallow light, especially as it had been the site of many of his “lessons”.  The chamber had absorbed years and years worth of his screams, and in doing so, had provided a bleak canvas for his increasing mastery of the Force, and of the dark side.  It was there that he had learned to transform his pain into power.  

     Hux had been audience to the those teachings many a time, and Kylo Ren sneered beneath his mask as he recalled how often the General had swallowed uncomfortably as he watched Snoke “instruct” Ren.  It was not that the ginger-haired monster felt any sympathy for what Ren endured, it was rather an involuntary recognition of the impressive abilities that the young apprentice wielded.  That was the ground upon which their silent agreement was made, one that neatly managed the obvious rancour between the two disciples.  Hux, a master self-preservationist, did not want the evident power of Kylo Ren turned on him.  And there were instances when the Force user’s abilities had proven useful to the First Order.  Kylo Ren, on the other hand, could not harm Hux without paying a heavy price by Snoke.  He also had no interest, whatsoever, in the mundane details that occupied Hux’s days.  

     Hux’s eyes now narrowed. “Your judgment where the girl is concerned seems dubious at best.  You, with all the mystical powers you hold, tied to some fanatical ancient religion, were bested by a mere s _cavenger_.  Tell me, Ren, how is that possible?”

     “And how is it possible that your state of the art super weapon was brought down by a sanitation worker?  Perhaps the mess hall staff will mount the next uprising?” were Kylo Ren’s scathing words.

     The General's mouth pursed into a thin line at the same time as his nostrils flared.  His mouth opened to deliver a surely cutting rebuttal.  

     “Silence!”  was the roar of Supreme Leader Snoke.  “I will not have two of my senior officers bickering like petulant children.  Neither of you are above reproach, and your failures have cost our operations dearly.  Do I make myself clear?”

     Both men snapped their heels, turning their bodies to full attention as they peered up at the hologram, as years of training had instilled in them.   

     “Of course, Supreme Leader,”  was Hux’s immediate response.  Kylo Ren did not say anything but gave an incline of his head.  A thought came to his mind - _Snoke was distracted._   He had been uncharacteristically distracted over the past weeks.  And how odd it was that he was now able to catch these small thoughts and inclinations from his master.  He had never been able to do so before.  

     The Supreme Leader glared down at his top of command.  “Kylo Ren makes a good point, General.  I hope you have reviewed your quality control procedures to ensure there are no further traitors hidden amongst our midst.  I expect a full report and your assurance, expeditiously.  You will carry out an inspection at our research facilities, too.”  

     “Yes, of course, Supreme Leader.  Our procedures were very good before but there is always room for improvement.”  

     “Very good was not nearly good enough, General,”  the stern words shook the chamber with their intensity.

     “Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, bowing his head meekly.  Kylo Ren could not help but roll his eyes at the General.  With all of his self-aggrandising bluster, he looked like a cuckolded child at the moment.   

     “And you, my apprentice.  Where do I begin?  I see you have healed considerably from the injuries inflicted upon you by the scavenger.  I hope you now understand that those injuries were not because of her, but _because of your misplaced compassion for her_.  She was only the instrument in the error of your ways.  Take off your helmet.”

     Kylo Ren obediently released the mechanism and pulled off the helmet, holding it under his arm.  “Supreme Leader, I will seek my revenge on the scavenger.  I admit I was not fighting at full capacity that day.  My injuries were severe, but still I held back.  I was swayed by the power I felt emanating from her, and thought I would bring her over to our side.  But now, I am certain she is with Skywalker.  He will have indoctrinated her with his inane Jedi ways.  She is tainted now,”  Kylo Ren spoke, his distaste for the Jedi philosophy clearly expressed in his voice.  

     Snoke paused a moment, contemplating the young man standing before him.  His black eyes narrowed.  “And how do you propose to seek your revenge, as you put it?”  The Supreme Leader’s voice vibrated like the rattle of a snake.  

     “I am close to locating them.  I have some leads that I need to investigate, and when I can determine the exact location, I will eliminate the threat they pose once and for all.  Luke Skywalker is an old man now.  And the scavenger - although powerful, she is raw and unrefined at best.  I know that now and will adjust my tactics accordingly.”

     “Do not underestimate Luke Skywalker.  He may be an old man now, as you say, Kylo Ren,  but he is disciplined and practiced, and far more in control of himself than you are.  And he has certainly learned new things since you last saw him in his search for Jedi artefacts.  He is the son of Darth Vader, after all,”  Snoke said.  Again, Kylo Ren felt a tremor originating from Snoke as he spoke of the Old Jedi.  

     “That is all true, Supreme Leader.  But I am certain he feels some misguided sense of responsibility where General Organa is concerned, now more than ever.   If I feign some sort of repentance, I am sure I will catch him in his weakness,” Kylo Ren said smoothly, not a hint of emotion on his face.  

     Snoke’s malformed head inclined to the side as he contemplated his apprentice with newfound interest.  “You will betray him again?”  his voice positively purred.  

     “Yes, my master.  When I betrayed him before, it nearly broke him.  I have felt it.  But now he must be stopped before he can train anymore Jedi.  You and I have felt the awakening.  It is only a matter of time before more force sensitives emerge, as the scavenger has done.  I am certain of it.  I seek to ensure that they will have no option but to come to us.  They will be a great opportunity for us if they can come to us untainted by useless Jedi indoctrinations.”  

    “So what are you asking, Kylo Ren?  You wish to leave in search of the Jedi and his presumed Padawan?  With the Knights of Ren?”

     “My intention is to go myself and convince the Jedi that I come with peaceful intentions.  When conditions are right, I will signal for the Knights of Ren to ensure everything is taken care of.”  

     General Hux snorted at that statement.  “What can the Knights of Ren achieve that a battalion of stormtroopers can’t accomplish?”  

     Kylo Ren’s eyes narrowed dangerously at the General.  “I think we’ve seen what your so-called elite stormtroopers can accomplish.”  

     “Supreme Leader, if I may interject here.  What I am hearing is a request from the Master of the Knights of Ren to go to some galaxy-forsaken place for an extended holiday, so he can shack up with a scavenger from a backwater planet.”  

     Kylo Ren fought the urge to raise his hand towards the General.  It was taking every bit of his limited self-control to not throttle the General with his bare hands, much less invoke a force choke.  “I do not spend my evenings in distraction, as you do, General,”  he spoke through gritted teeth.  

     “Oh yes, right.  I forgot - that would be entirely _too human_ of you.  Not worthy of your wizarding standards, is it?  Although come to think of it, if Darth Vader -  the so-called greatest dark sider of all time, present company excluded, of course -," Hux inclined his head respectfully towards Snoke, "- hadn’t procreated, we wouldn’t be in this mess with _Luke and Leia Skywalker_ would we?  Or with you, for that matter?” 

     Ren’s hand rose this time to close the General’s throat via the Force.  The General gagged desperately for air as his face became a mottled shade of red.  

     “Enough!” roared Snoke.  “I told you I have had enough of this already and I tire of the both of you.  Ren, prepare yourself for your proposed mission.  Dispose of Luke Skywalker and his Padawan, or else.  And don’t think you can hide from me, Master of the Knights of Ren.  Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it.   General Hux, you will take care of General Organa in the meantime.  I want her brought to me, so I can take care of her personally.  The Resistance is being weakened by our current operations, and she herself is at her weakest at this moment.  This is the perfect moment to trap her.  Poor thing - she is mourning the unfortunate loss of her husband, after all.”  Snoke’s voice was velvety smooth as he perused the dark knight for his reaction.  Apparently satisfied by what he observed, he continued,  “If we eliminate the dual threats of our two misguided Skywalkers, we will be in very good shape indeed.  You have your orders.”  

     And with that, the hologram disappeared.  Kylo Ren watched Hux as he struggled to recover from the force hold, and he quickly invaded his mind to understand what plans he had for General Organa.  It was the perfect moment, as Hux usually had exceptional discipline to resist his invasions - the most formidable of any non-force sensitive he had ever encountered.  He filtered quickly and unnoticed through his mind, filtering past images of his recent evenings spent in distraction quickly so he would not see images that he would only wish to un-see.  _Feigned diplomatic gala.  Opportunity_.  Kylo Ren quickly scanned the information he found there, recording it in his own mind.  Something else stood out to him.  _Funeral.  Han Solo.  Three days._   Hux was quickly regaining his composure, his face returning to its nearly translucent paleness.  The General straightened his jacket, gave a short clear of this throat, and turned towards the door, and Ren fell into step silently beside him.  They paused at the exit.

     “I would say until next time or something trite like that, but to be honest, it’s always my hope that I won’t ever see you again,”  The General drawled finally as the two stepped through the doors.

     “Then I’ll see you in hell.”  Kylo Ren spat at him as he strode away.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all the wonderful readers out there, and for those of you have left kudos and comments. They are much appreciated, and hopefully you'll keep them coming!


	7. Walking the Path Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the kudos and comments. Please keep them coming!

     Rey pressed her eyes shut and opened them, attempting to clear her vision.  Where was she?  She stood in the midst of a street as streams of people flowed passed her in all directions.  Bustling, rushing.  She felt her mind “lock down” as it always had to when confronted with so many minds, so many thoughts, so many impulses.  She - at least her mother had always said - was too sensitive, too empathetic, too permeable to the thoughts of others.  

     But what was she thinking?  She didn’t even know her mother and she had certainly never been in this place before.  She didn’t even know what it was called.  All that she knew was that it was a city sprawling in every direction; when she looked to the left, to the right, in front and in back, all she could find was endless urbanity.  Even when she looked up, she was overwhelmed to see that the shiny buildings soared what seemed like miles into the sky.  And then there was the smell, of haste, of burnt fuel that singed her nostrils, of strange but enticing food smells, and of metal, glass and stone.  This was something new to all of her senses, and at the same time…not.  How could some place be so familiar when she had never been there before?  

     Rey jolted back to what she was doing - she found herself walking now.  Only her feet weren’t her’s.  They were bigger, and covered in deep brown boots of a sumptuous quality she could only dream of.  What was happening?  She felt herself feeling oddly elated as she thought about how well things had been going well recently - she and Luke had discovered some interesting Jedi artefacts, and Luke had seemed momentarily cheerier than he had usually been as of late.   

     She strode through the streets with purpose, looking for something, pausing to read signs.  How odd again, she thought, that she knew exactly where she was headed.  She was hoping to meet someone.  Her mother.  The din of the thoughts and voices battering at her consciousness gave her a slight headache, and she was already tiring of the effort of blocking out so many thoughts and impressions.  But no, she would not give up.  She hadn’t seen her mother in so long and Luke had reluctantly allowed her a break in training to make this trip.  

      _“Your mother is very busy at the moment and she doesn’t even know you are coming, or that you are even anywhere nearby,”  Luke had warned._   Rey’s face registered shock as she recalled the Jedi’s face - younger, clean shaven, and looking much more “lighter” than she had ever seen him.  Her hand came to pinch the bridge of her nose - so uncharacteristic of her - as she remembered that expression.  _That expression_.  It was the look of a man who was resigned to something, as if he tried valiantly to hold her by one hand from falling over the edge of a cliff, and yet, somehow knew that his strength was not enough to prevent her from sliding from his grasp.  _She_ was used to that look, having seen it reflected so many times in his older face.  But it also seemed that he had _always_ looked at her like that, even when she was a small child unknowingly wielding her incomparable powers.  Rey felt herself thinking that the look didn’t hurt as much as it did before.  She was older and she was stronger now, and she had already begun practising ways of teaching her pain to make her stronger.   So, she had nodded politely at his words - this was just one of their many points of disagreement - but would not be dissuaded from her plans.

     Squaring her shoulders, and doubling down on blocking out the opera of minds surrounding her, she looked for the place that the meetings would be held.  There was, of course, a cost to blocking out so much,  because then it became a challenge to pick out the thoughts and impressions that she _should_ know about, those that spoke of intentions directed solely at her.  

     Her feet - only not really her's - made quick work of the city blocks.  They took her up ramps and down stairs, sometimes so she was far above street level but still overshadowed by the shiny mountainous buildings looming overhead.  Eventually the buildings thinned out a bit and became less hulking until she was walking through a charming old section of the town.  She saw children whizzing past on bikes, and others on hover boards, and recalled the fun of it from her youth with a small smile.  _Well, that was really odd_ , Rey thought.  She felt suspended in reality, encapsulated in the thoughts of another -

     A tap on her shoulder came out of nowhere.  She had not heard the approach.  Of course she had not!  She was so busy just surviving the cacophony of minds clamouring at her consciousness in this sprawling city.  And so she turned, surprised to find a group of people, some of whom she recognised as colleagues of her mother, and some who were strangers.  But what really startled her was the scowling expressions on their faces.  

     “Yes?”  she heard herself speak.  Rey startled again - her voice was definitely male, with its low and deep timbre.  

      The leader of the pack stepped forward as the others, by motion of his hand, surrounded her in every direction.   “What are you doing here?” he spoke, eyes narrowing under his hood.  He wore a uniform and a cloak, and she thought she recognised him as one of her mother’s advisors.  Only, she couldn't be certain because this man should really then have been much more pleasant.

     “I - I’m here to see my mother,”  she spoke, again surprised by the sound of her voice.  

     “Your mother, you say?  Don’t you mean the _daughter_ of Darth Vader?”  said the man, his voice now threatening.  

     Rey drew back in surprise.  “What?”  she asked.  What was this man saying?

     “He doesn’t know!”  another exclaimed.  The face in itself was kinder than the rest, but it belonged to an impressionable mind easily swayed by the intensity of others around it.  

     “Of course he knows, he’s just as well-trained in the art of deception as his mother and the rest of the Skywalkers.” 

     A hand pushed her shoulder roughly, causing her to stagger back.  Rey now opened herself up mentally, in a pleading attempt to understand the lot of them.  Images of news flashed across her consciousness, revealing stories of Darth Vader, revealed father to Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa.  She tried desperately to pinpoint a mind in front of her for more details, but her heart was beating so hard causing her breath to catch alarmingly as she tried for air.  She couldn’t understand what it was they were saying to her and her vision was becoming clouded by the lack of oxygen to her brain.  Her body was trembling under her duress and the uncertainty of how to respond to the mob.

     “So your mother honestly thought that she could keep the truth of who she really is away from us?  From those of us loyal to the cause, and who have been working to undo what the likes of the Darth Vader and the Empire did?  Darth Vader captured and killed my father in cold blood, I'll have you know,”  said the scathing voice of another woman, whose eyes flashed murderously.  Rey tried desperately to draw in some air, even as she felt hands tugging at her through her robes.  

     “I don’t know what you are talking about.  You are mistaken.  My grandfather was Anakin Skywalker.  He was a hero!” 

     The faces around her sneered, and she felt a wave of rage hit her as surely as a punch to the stomach.  She staggered back again, feeling weakened by the pure hatred directed at her.  “Your grandfather was Anakin Skywalker, until he gave himself over to the Chancellor Palpatine, himself a double agent, and became Darth Vader.  Don’t pretend, young one!”  

     “That’s not true.  That’s impossible!” she exclaimed, her voice adamant but weak.  She felt like her body was shutting down on her under the stress of a heart breaking into a million rattling pieces.  

     The group had begun to shove and push her around, and she felt hands grabbing at her - tugging, tearing, yanking.  She was being tossed about like a single vessel in a choppy, angry sea.

     “You and your mother are liars!!!” screamed that first man.  His name was - .  Her mind would simply not give her the information she seeked.  She couldn’t remember.  These people had been friends and close associates of her family.  They had _dined_ at galas hosted by her mother.  “And you must be stopped!  The Skywalkers are a curse to the galaxy and you must be stopped once and for all.  Do you also have the Force, like your grandfather, and your uncle?”

     Rey managed to shake her head slowly, pained that she had always had to deny who she really was, but knowing that the truth would be to her detriment here.  Her terror began rising uncontrollably inside of her as she read the intentions of those around her.  They wanted blood.  They wanted her dead.  And they were on top of her with alarming speed, fingers scratching and gouging at her very flesh.  She was taller and broader than any of them, but no match for such a large group….without help of the Force.  She had no choice - the would have to use it if she was to survive this tidal wave of rage.  What would Luke do?  _Minimise casualties_ , she thought in a panic.  

     But the impulses of the others began to seep in.  Plans to assassinate Leia Organa, to decimate their home and anything that belonged to them.  She felt her anger surging inside of her - these so-called friends and colleagues were nothing better than traitors, thieves, and murderers themselves.    How could her mother, and her own uncle, abandoned her like this.  They hadn't prepared her at all for these claims.  These people had known for days.  Where was the warning that lies were coming her way?  Her mind at that moment was a blubbering, incoherent mess, but instinctively she began pulling on the Force as she sent out a wave of energy enough to knock back the group a few steps from her.  It was just to gain her some time, and the opportunity to think.

     The leader’s eyes widened with realisation.  “ _He is one of them, too!_   Like Darth Vader.  He can use the Force!”  Those words acted like a switch pulled, and the level of hatred within the group suddenly escalated one hundred fold.  They lunged towards her and Rey tried desperately not to panic, but as she was nearly buried by their hateful and murderous thoughts, she called on the Force again, striking out with her arm powerfully until the group were tossed back like rag dolls into the building behind them.  Their anger was potent, however,  and they scrambled quickly to their feet, drawing hidden blasters this time at the command of the leader.  They began firing at her and Rey caught the blaster fire in her hand, directing it into a garden wall.  The wall exploded and tumbled under the pressure of such immense energy.  This served only to alarm, and then enrage the group further, and another round of blaster fire soon erupted.  

     She was getting hopelessly tired and directed the blaster fire away repeatedly, though one errant beam grazed her arm painfully.  Ah yes, the pain.  There was power in that to harness and she let out a feral growl.  This time she let out a burst of power that stopped the blaster beams mid-air, and not in her palm, as before.  Backing down the street, she ultimately directed the vibrating beams into a crane, rather than directly back at the group as part of her longed to do.  Still, the crane came toppling down on top of the group as a plume of soot and dust rose from the damaged ground.   She felt and heard the group’s pain and cries, and for a moment stopped in her tracks.  She felt the life extinguish out of a few souls, with their sudden last remembrances of loved ones under the crushing weight of the crane.  

     Her Jedi training told her that she should check how the others were, but she could not bring herself to do it.  Instead, she reached out to the remaining minds methodically and emptied their minds of this encounter.   And then she turned and ran as fast as she could, her long legs putting distance between the defeated mob and herself quickly.  Rey weaved through alleyways and around corners, until a hand reached out and pulled her into the lobby of a small building.

     “Ben?  What is it?  What is wrong, my child?”  Rey looked up in alarm to see the maligned face of a humanoid man - deathly pale and very thin.  Her eyes widened in morbid fascination - it was Snoke!  What was he doing there?  How could he know to find her here?  She felt the thought reverberate through her consciousness, telling her that something wasn't right.  The eyes that peered at her were black and shiny, which communicated concern though no real warmth.  Rey felt the wave of adrenaline that bolstered her final stand rush out of her.  

     “I-I killed them.  I killed them.” her voice trembled in reflection of her body now shaking with shock and fatigue.

     “Killed who?”  asked the man.  

     “They attacked me.  They think that Darth Vader is my grandfather.  They wanted to kill me.”  she said, her voice cracking with emotion. A pat on the shoulder, and Rey felt herself finding it oddly stiff and unsympathetic despite what it was intended to convey.

      “I see.  Then you have done no wrong, my child.  You had to defend yourself.  Remember what I have told you before.  Power is power, there is no good or bad about it.  It either accomplishes, or if it is not enough, it does not.  In this case it did what was needed.  It saved you when no one else _would_.  Not your family, not your master.  You did it yourself with the great power you have been entrusted with.  I have told that you are a custodian of the Force, as your grandfather was before you.”  

     “But it is not the Jedi way.  What I have done…is wrong.”  

     “Was is not wrong that they would kill you just because of your heritage?  No one really knows the true story of Darth Vader.  What is told is just Jedi and rebellion propaganda.”

     Rey looked at the man aghast.  “What do you mean, my heritage?  It can’t be true, or my mother would have told me.  My uncle would have told me.”  A panic rose up as her already spent heart began to pound again.  Could it be true?  Could they really have lied to her like this?

     The man’s mouth set in a grim line.  “Search your feelings, Ben.  The answer is there.”  

     Rey’s knees nearly gave out from underneath her as the realisation came to her.  In the midst of the skirmish, she had kept this revelation at a distance.  But now, as Snoke offered and urged her to accept the truth, she felt the darkness enveloping her, and in the _certainty_ of its embrace, providing the answers to questions that had always plagued her.  She felt herself turning towards the place _they_ had told her she should turn away from.  The place from where she came, from where their line originated.  Rey saw images of her mother’s face, her father’s, and of her uncle’s flashing wildly before her eyes - each holding that resigned and fearful expression.  She had held that truth reflected in their faces away her entire life, but now…but now she knew where she had always belonged. 


	8. Blurred Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, chapter eight and these two are still dancing around each other. Well, we're getting there. There's actually just two more chapters to go before they actually see each other again, but a lot of action will happen in the meantime. 
> 
> As always, thank you for the kudos and comments. They continue to be appreciated. :-))))

     Rey stood facing a training droid that Luke had brought out from his storage.  They were finally outside again under partly sunny skies, as a few days of driving rain and winds had kept them limited to training indoors.  She breathed in deeply that still new scent to her - of soggy earth, damp moss and of wet stone.

     “This is how I learned to use a lightsaber, with Obi Wan Kenobi,”  her master explained patiently.  Rey couldn’t help but grin as as she mentally took apart the greyish spherical droid.  It was like seeing a dear old friend when Luke had brought it out.  How many carcasses like this had she come across while scavenging?  She knew every part it contained, and how they fit together perfectly.  Thinking about it was a welcome distraction from… well, from _whatever that was_ last night.

     “Let’s begin.”  Luke said, igniting his green lightsaber.

     Rey was mesmerised by the Jedi’s elegant and practiced movements as he deflected blasts from the droid.  He anticipated, rather than reacted.  As the pace picked up, he maintained his calm and moved swiftly to deflect the onslaught of beams.  Finally, after moving at what seemed to be an inhumane pace for several minutes, a quick wave of his hand froze the droid in its place.  

     Rey hadn’t even realised that she was holding her breath, but she let out a long and appreciative breath.  “How did you do that?”  she asked in complete wonder.  Luke had moved like a man many years younger, and an extremely quick-reflexed and nimble one at that.  

     “You will do it too, Rey,”  Luke said with utter certainty.  His only response was her hazel stare, eyes wide and round with disbelief.  He chuckled.  “Come now, give it a try.”

     She drew in another deep breath through her nose and ignited her - Anakin’s - blue lightsaber.  Whenever she held the metallic hilt, its weight struck her.  It wasn’t heavy in the physical sense, but it nonetheless carried with it the great burden of its history.   But Rey would not delve into that now, and instead, began by closing her eyes for a moment, allowing the sabre’s energy to vibrate through her, letting its signature to become a part of hers.  She carefully arranged her feet, and nodded to Luke.

     Rey easily deflected the first few blasts and felt her confidence surge as she began to move faster and faster.  _Left, right, right again, left, up, up, right,_ she recited in her head.  There was a pattern to the droid’s attacks and her mind was quickly calculating the algorithm.  But the blasts were soon coming too quickly, and finally one seared closely past her shoulder, causing her to hiss with pain.  

     Luke immediately froze the droid again and reached out his hand to her shoulder.  “Are you okay?”

     She nodded quickly as she tried to breathe through the sting of the burn, noting however the extraordinary cushion of energy that Luke’s touch contained.  It reminded her of what she had yearned for as a child - of someone to take care of her as a mother or father would.  

     “I will heal that for you completely afterwards, but for now, if you’ll agree, its best to work with it.  In a battle, you will often have to work around your injuries.”  

     She nodded again as she shook off that remembered feeling of longing, steeling herself for the next round, and closing her eyes momentarily to refocus.  But Luke did not release the droid.  Instead, he cleared his throat as handed her a visor.

     “Rey, I want you to wear this.”  

     Her mouth gaped open as she looked at its black eye shield.  “But I won’t be able to see.”

     Luke smiled, nodding.  “Of course you won’t.”  When Rey’s eyebrows furrowed together, he winked. “Your footwork is…remarkably improved, and you did exceedingly well using your eyes and your rational mind.  You would make an excellent mathematician, I think.  But, I’m not here to teach you mathematics.  What I want is for you to feel your way into this.  Reach out with your feelings and sense the Force.”  

     Rey groaned as she returned that calm and kind blue stare.  Of course, Luke would ask this of her - to do the thing she was still avoiding.  A deep connection to the Force invariably meant that _he_ appeared.  She closed her eyes, trying desperately to remember what had troubled her so much since she awoke from her dreams that morning.  But she still could not remember.  There was only a vague impression that it had been something about _him_. Something very significant about _him_.  Why did everything always lead back to Kylo Ren?

     The young Padawan opened her eyes and found Luke watching her expectantly.  Despite the many doubts that swirled in her mind about what she was doing, the Jedi had really become quite dear to her, and she struggled with not wanting to disappoint him.  She knew that she should be here on Ahch-to now; she had checked in on that fact many times since Luke had taught her how, but her true purpose still escaped her.  Was Luke what she was intended to become?  Undeniably strong with the Force, but living a solitary life, eschewing even closest familial relations and friends?  There were so many doubts, questions, and hesitations and she didn’t feel any closer to the answers.

     “Rey...If you don’t practice your connection with the Force, you won’t advance,”  Luke's tone was gently reprimanding.  She nodded silently and accepted the visor, while at the same time, hesitantly opening the door in her mind that she had been trying to keep closed.  She sighed with relief - for the moment it seemed _he_ was not there, lurking in the shadows.  

     “Alright, begin,”  was Luke’s voice.  Rey heard, rather than felt the small blasts from the droid - her well-trained ears giving her information about the direction she should move.  She deflected at least thirty shots of increasing speed before the droid was silenced again.

     “Stop!”  Luke said.  Rey pushed up her visor to see Luke rummaging around in a large brown sack before fishing out a pair of pilot’s headphones.  “Wear these too,” he said, wry amusement laced through his tone.  And in response to Rey’s questioning look, he gave her an encouraging smile.  His smiles had started to come much more frequently since that first day.  “Trust in the Force, Rey.  You will see a difference, I promise.”  

     Rey reluctantly put on the headphones too, before dropping the visor in place.  The damp smells around her were magnified as she took a few long and deep breaths.  After some moments spent like that, she tentatively reached out with the Force and began seeing what surrounded her in an entirely new way.  She could sense the droid in shimmering outline and the intense burning light, almost like a bright flame, that was Luke.  Rey was mesmerised by the myriad of sparkling threads she could see connecting everything around her.  She became so engrossed in what she saw that she didn’t anticipate the blast until she felt it sear past the same shoulder again.

    “Ughhh” she cried out, grabbing her shoulder.  Rey felt pain course through her, triggering her anger.  Her good hand rose instinctively and stopped all the incoming shots in mid-air!   There was something so familiar about that picture - of beams of blaster fire vibrating almost harmlessly in their place - but she couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before.  With a motion of her hand she cast the blasts off to the side, causing a small tremor in the ground.  

     “Rey.  Stop immediately!”  was Luke’s voice, spoken directly into her mind.  Rey quickly caught herself and threw back her visor to see Luke looking at her with astonishment and then, that expression.  _That expression_.  She had seen it so many times before.  But had she really?  She shook her head trying to dislodge the thought.  

     “What?” she asked, as she somewhat guiltily took in the small crater she had created in the ground.  Luke followed her glance, shaking his head.

     “How did you do that, Rey?”  he asked, his voice uneven.  

     “I - I don’t really know.  I feel like it I’ve seen it…somewhere.  But I don’t…I can’t remember,”  she said, her face showing her confusion.  

     Luke ran his hand through his hair as he seemed lost in thought for a few moments.  When he looked back to her, his eyebrows were furrowed together as if he was trying to work something out for himself.  “What you just did is very advanced, Rey.  To deflect a blaster bolt using your lightsaber is one thing, but to actually stop it in its tracks, is another, and you’ve just basically skipped lightyears ahead to that.”  

     Rey didn’t know if there was any praise in his words despite her having just performed an apparently outrageous feat of the Force.  She shrugged helplessly.  “I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I just knew how.”  

    He rubbed his eyes and then glanced over at her again.  “Something’s been troubling you today.  Can you tell me?”  asked Luke.  

     Rey gave an exasperated breath.  “The trouble is - I can’t, because I actually can’t!  I know I had some sort of dream last night…but even as soon as I awoke, I couldn’t remember anything about it.  I just have this…impression…that its something really important and that its about - about...” her voice was unsteady as her mind raced with her habitually hostile thoughts about Kylo Ren.

     “My nephew.  Naturally.” said Luke, the slightest bit of humour laced in his dry words despite his serious expression.

     “I don’t know why he can’t just leave me alone!  I know you’ve said that he is a giant pain in the ass-“

     “Those weren’t my words precisely…but okay, let’s go with that.”

      Rey couldn’t help but smile a little, before her expression grew serious again.  “But what is he doing now?  Controlling my dreams?  And even if I can remember them?  Can you see my dream, Master Luke? Do you know what I dreamt?”  she asked, her tone taking on a desperate quality.  

     Luke stroked his beard with his mechanical hand, his mouth set in a grim line.  “Rey, I don’t make a habit of rooting around in people’s heads without their permission.  It is not the Jedi way.”  

     “But you often seem to know what I am thinking,”  she interjected.

     A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.  “Well, you have an exceptionally expressive face, and your thoughts may as well be broadcast on a loudspeaker.  We do need to work on that.”  

     Rey gave an embarrassed “O” with her mouth.  Luke grinned again.

     “But I can try to see into your mind if you allow it, as we did the first day you were here.  I have sensed a great weight on your mind all day.”  

     She nodded enthusiastically.  Luke urged to her sit down and then he reached out with the Force to gently nudge her mind.  Rey was again astounded by what a difference Luke’s quiet invasion was as compared to when Kylo Ren had barged in.  After a few minutes of sitting in silence, he withdrew.  His expression was perplexed and the worried expression had returned. 

     “There are strong barriers in your mind,”  he finally said.  

      Rey looked at him blankly. “So, what does that mean?”

     “You don’t have the skill - yet - to create those kinds of barriers.  As I said, mental defence is something we have to work on.”  

     “So how did they get there?  Who could do it then?” she asked, feeling a panic rise up in her.  She was afraid he would tell her that Kylo Ren had even more control of her than she had thought. 

     Luke shook his head, expelling a long breath.  “But that’s the thing - I am almost certain it is you.”  

 

*********

     Rey wandered the island later that day as if powered by thrusters.  This was not the walk she often did in the afternoons after training, drinking in the scenery and the cool ocean breeze.  She was rattling inside and needed to expend the frazzled energy inside of her, and so she walked and walked, and failing that, choose to scramble over jutting rocks.  As always, she carefully avoided the temples and the tug she felt whenever drew near.  Luke had let her go today with the promise that she would meditate, though she now excused her procrastination by telling herself that she still was searching out the perfect spot.  It was so unlike her - Rey had never procrastinated in her life.  A late start meant it wasn’t worth starting at all - her life as a scavenger had taught her that much.  But the truth was -  and this despite of her conversations with Luke and his calm assurances - she felt as if her insides were churning relentlessly with fear and doubt.  

     Her mind returned to her perpetual review of events since she’d arrived on Ahch-to.  When there had been just that strange feeling of being both inside and out of herself, she had assigned it to her newfound connection to the Force, to the “expanded awareness” that Luke spoke so convincingly about.  But now what Luke labelled a connection - a bond even - was troubling her so deeply because it was the way she experienced it; as if this wave of energy that was the Force was also alive and pulsating between her and _him,_ blurring the edges of where each began _.  She had gotten the Force, and with it, Kylo Ren._

     She shook her head in an attempt to rid herself of the unwanted thoughts.  Rey cast her awareness out, following the pathways, like ribbons of pure light, and touched upon Luke, and even Leia, as Luke had taught her that same day.  She once again sensed much activity and motion around the General - busyness, planning.  And also, always, great burden, like a spirit struggling to breathe under boulder upon boulder of pressure.   She brushed across Leia’s light compassionately, and even though she couldn’t see the contents of the woman’s mind, she certainly understood that feeling of being alone in the universe.  It didn’t take another moment, though, before she felt as if she bumped into that other presence.   And as usual, that contact was so much more tangible, as surely as she had reached out and tapped a shoulder.  Rey shrank back in fear, wishing she knew how to stop herself from going to that place, a place that in any other context, she would have treasured as a refuge from her absolute loneliness.  That word - _fear_ \- which figured so prominently in the Jedi texts she had read swam before her eyes, as her bewildered tears blurred her vision.  Why this, of all things?  Why was she connected to _him_ , of all, people?  And why did she have to feel _so_ connected?  

      _Fear is the path to the dark side_ , she repeated to herself as something of a mantra, and yet she was so frightened to bump into him as she had since her arrival.  Especially today, as those forgotten dreams of the previous night rested upon her chest with a deep and soulful ache.  Rey’s stomach churned as she finally walked back up the hill towards the huts.  No matter what Luke had said, she believed Ren was to blame for the “barriers” - that he was somehow controlling even her dreams just as he had moved her feet during practice during the other day.  And this frustrated her to no end, as she acknowledged that she could not progress much further without deepening her connection to the Force, without strengthening and building upon it.  _It was his fault she couldn't take herself there, because then she would invariably find him._   Yes, there had been that bizarre incident with the blaster droid that morning, but otherwise knew she had stalled in progress the last few days despite her very many early breakthroughs.  

      _Rey, you must get a grip on yourself_ , she said to herself, as she entered the garden enclosure.  She breathed in deeply the dewy and aromatic scent of the flowers and herbs that grew in plenty, and she spent a good deal of time stroking their petals and leaves lovingly.  That garden, in all of its beautiful abundance and simplicity, was probably the greatest pleasure she had received in her life.  An idea struck her, and she sank slowly to the ground and took her favoured cross-legged pose, feeling the energy surrounding her.  She began breathing and looking through half-closed eyes as Luke had taught her.  Rey found everything surrounding her flare brilliantly with light, the energy in them pulsating with life.  What she wasn’t prepared to see, though, was how everything slowly fell away until she was surrounded by a place of pure light.  There were no objects there, and it was as if she was suspended in the midst of a cloud where not a single object was visible. She floated there peacefully, relishing the feeling of utter weightlessness.  Of this strange embrace.  She had certainly never experienced this before.  

 _"You are powerful.  More powerful than you even know,”_   she heard the words spoken so clearly beside her ear with a deep and rich voice, so clearly that she turned to see if someone was there.  Again that flare of energy, of magnification, even though no one was there but a feeling so warm, so comfortable. In the distance she heard the peal of children’s laughter.  

      _“You’re safe here.  No one will hurt you,”_ that gentle male voice spoke again.  It was so familiar that she had known it somehow most of her life.  But her mind refused to make the connection as hard as she tried to link it.  

     Tears began to flow freely.  She had never had a place like that in her life.  In Ahch-to she had sensed a feeling of purpose, of comfort, and of momentary belonging.  But this place was entirely different, otherworldly  - and it felt safe, warm, protected.  It was home.   No matter how hard she had begged the sky to bring her the people who would cherish her like this, a feeling like this one never came. It was here that she wanted to stay forever.  

 

*******

     Kylo Ren made his way quickly to his quarters, sagging against the door as soon as it closed behind him.  He was drained, as he was, whenever he spent time with Snoke.  There was something in the way energy distorted around his master - almost as if it would draw the life out of anything around him.  Ren had always thought of this as a testament to the power of his master - the ability to manipulate the very structure of energy around him, though now…he shook his head trying to rid himself of the turning feeling in his gut.  His and Snoke’s interests in the Force had diverged for some time, though he had always dutifully carried out all of his master’s “research” assignments.  As time had passed, however, he found it harder, not easier, to complete his tasks.  He brought his hands to his temples, pressing into the pressure points there, trying to to release some tension.  This session had been even that much more exhausting as he had been forced to relive one of the most tragic days in his life, and all the while trying to actively block Snoke from seeing into his mind and of seeing the turmoil that lurked within.

     He knew he’d gotten away too easily when he had shared audience with Hux prior in the day.  A wringing feeling in the back of his head had foretold that Snoke would summon him again - separately.  It was well after midnight when the call came, and Ren, already exhausted from his efforts earlier, had wearily obeyed the Supreme Leader’s bidding.  His master had told him in no uncertain terms that he needed “steeling” against the light and had dove into his mind relentlessly. 

     Although the assault was nothing unusual in itself, its intensity seemed magnified as the merciless Supreme Leader had driven those memories home - of the day he had found out the truth of Darth Vader.  _That_ day which had told Ren that even those nearest him - his mother, his father, his uncle - were not to be trusted.  _That_ they had not trusted him enough to give him the truth or to give him the answer to why the darkness always had seemed so nearby.  His entire life to that point had been a lie; his parents had implored him to not reveal his force abilities to anyone and he had obeyed, even if what they had asked was akin to cutting of his own limbs.  How long and hard had he fought to learn how to control his abilities, which was made doubly difficult by their unprecedented magnitude and his own powerful emotions that would unwittingly trigger one act of the Force or the other.  And then there was that other lie - that his lineage was heroic, with Anakin making Skywalker a household name before his untimely demise at the hands of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.  And for what had he done all of this, Ren asked himself?  For those very same people who were supposed to be friends and associates of his family and who had turned on him without even a trace of mercy!

     He had slid down the door now and was repeatedly pressing his head back into the cool metal as the memories flooded him viciously.  He had been forced to relive that day and it had always brought the same pain.  Only this time, he found himself remarking on things that he had noticed that first day and had somehow forgotten since then.  Why couldn’t he remember the identities of those people?  He was certain that he knew them well enough to know their names, but he could not place their names as hard as he tried.  And what was Snoke doing there that day?  How had he happened to be nearby?  Kylo Ren ground his head back against the the door.  It was as if he had seen the day through fresh eyes again.

     When Snoke had finally cast him out, he had reminded Ren of his mission objectives and tightened his hold on his mind.  And yet, somehow, Kylo Ren had found a way to keep some parts of his mind locked away and undisturbed by his master.  It was as if he had wrested one small piece of himself back.  But even that was hard won, and if it would - or could - remain that way, he didn't know.  

     The truth was Ren wasn't even sure what he was really doing anymore - his plans could now only be loosely called as such.  He would get to Ahch-to, obeying a call from deep inside of him, pulling at him stronger each day, demanding his action.  And then what?  And then what, indeed?  Up until just a few days before, he had assumed it was he who was hunting Skywalker.  But the Old Jedi had upended that idea when he had somehow managed to communicate with him through his bond with the girl.  Skywalker had deliberately given him the final clue to his location.   He was certain of it.  But why?   Had he been invited to a trap?  

     He sank to the floor and breathed deeply, slowly divesting his mind of all of the barriers he had to maintain in Snoke’s presence.   There was no question that Snoke knew that conflict still raged inside of his apprentice, but Ren hoped he had kept its depths obscured from his master.  _Doubt.  Loss of direction.  Questioning everything._   Before Starkiller, he would have proudly showcased his findings to his Master, and today, he had twice gone to the chambers deliberately hiding how much he knew.  He was exhausted  - a quick glance at the chronometer told him it was now late afternoon.  Snoke had tortured him mentally, and then physically for more than twelve hours.  

     And yet.  And yet, what?  Kylo Ren breathed as the tension of his session with Snoke slowly bled out of him.  Darkness gave way to shades of green and blue, and he was surprised to see small orbs of light surrounding him in every direction.  A feeling of calm, and of belonging filled him.  He wished for that feeling to be his own, though it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to determine where the line between him and _her_ stood.  He understood that the girl was doing something that brought this feeling in her and yet, he couldn’t see what it was.  For a moment he would allow himself this weakness, this way of seeing the world long forgotten, as if through the eyes of the child he once was.  All he knew was that he drank it all in, like a thirsty man in the desert, replenishing himself from what Snoke had drawn from him.  The feeling was so welcome that he found himself overcome by the urge to simply embrace her in gratitude for this momentary reprieve.  His thoughts towards her became  uncharacteristically more generous.   _She was more powerful than she even knew._

 


	9. Convergences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a delay in getting this chapter out, but I had so many plot details to work out. In any case, just one more chapter after this until "the meeting!" At this point, the story is purely just my imagination with some spoilers worked in here and there, and in general, trying to keep with the overall light-hearted feel of the original Star Wars trilogy. The characters are my hopefully, in-canon, interpretation.

     “It is done.”  Leia said softly to herself, leaning against the finely carved window frame of her guest quarters and watching the flurry of activity below as workers dismantled everything in the great square from the event earlier.   Event?  _Is that what it was_ , she thought bitterly to herself?  That word seemed so neutral, so benign, in contrast to its reality.  It was a funeral.  A memorial.  And it was _all_ over.  

     The day had come and gone just as any other, heralded by sunshine and cloudless skies, no matter how much dread she had endured in the days and weeks preceding it.  Her true mourning was a private affair, something clasped deeply in her soul since that fateful day when she was forced to accept the simultaneous deaths of both her husband and of her son.  This day was only about how to honour Han outwardly, to provide comfort to those who grieved the passing of a beloved hero who had died in the course of yet another galaxy-saving act.  It was the final stand of someone to be held in respect.  She thought about how she and Chewbacca had barely exchanged a word as they walked alongside the symbolic casket - there were simply no words to express the magnitude of what they felt. 

     But deep down, she knew Han - her Han - would never have cared for any of the pomp that came along with the afternoon’s proceedings.  All of the proper trappings and fanfare had been there with the grand procession, the band, elaborate displays, and hauntingly accurate holo-memorial.  But it didn’t change her own private observance in anyway.  Throughout it all, she had spoken to him in her heart, telling him how much she missed him.  How much she had missed him for the greater part of their relationship.  And she told him again and again how deeply sorry she was that she had asked of him something that was beyond even his incredible power to deliver - their son. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath before nervously smoothing her enormous midnight blue dress down.  She caught a reflection of herself in the mirror - so regal in the exquisitely embroidered gown with its fitted bodice and giant skirts.  It was ironic that on this day, she looked like the Princess that Han had always loved.  

     A knock came at her large carved door and Leia heard some commotion outside.  “Yes?”  she answered, her voice quavering.  

     “General Organa, there is a visitor insisting to pay his his respects,” she recognised the voice of Yanis, one of her own security detail.  Something in his tone made her stiffen.  

     “One moment,” she said, wiping her tears away hastily.  She walked to the heavy door and cracked it open to reveal the uniformed Yanis shifting uncomfortably and leaning closely toward her.  

     “Who’s here?”

     “The man claims to be General Hux,”  whispered Yanis, his grey eyes betraying his discomfiture. “I don’t now how they managed to get through.”  The young officer’s face betrayed his fear - a First Order presence at what was supposed to be a secret affair meant certain disaster.  

     “Hux?  As in General Hux of the First Order?  What does he want?”  she asked, as her mind raced.  “Has he been cleared?”

     Yanis nodded.  “Four times over. He is unarmed and came only with his Captain.  Someone named Phasma.  He insists that he needs to speak to you.”  

     Leia’s mind trembled quite literally as she thought about what the General could be doing there.  How had he found them?   She attempted to get a read on him as Luke had taught her, and found herself unable to get anything of meaning.  Hux was impressively guarded for a non-force sensitive.  

     “Very well,” she sighed.  “Allow him in.”  

     Leia closed the door momentarily and smoothed her gown nervously again, cursing its enormous rippling skirt for the difficulty it created in her movement.  What had she been thinking?  

     There came a knock again, and she opened the door to find a face of contradictions standing before her.  _So young and yet so precociously stern_ , she thought, as she took in the General’s precise uniform.  He might have a been a a bitter old man of twice his age were it not for the youthful complexion and shock of ginger hair.  

     “General Organa.  Finally, I meet you,” he said.  His words were smooth and cold as the edge of a blade. 

     “General Hux.  To what do I owe this…pleasure?” she nearly choked on the last word.  Her manners were so deeply entrenched that the words had come automatically, even as her soul stumbled upon them.  She motioned for him to enter, but held up her hand at silver-outfitted Phasma, blocking her entrance. “Only him,”  Leia said decisively.

     The ginger-haired man nodded dismissively at Phasma and walked with his rigid posture to one of the plush armchairs in the sitting room.  “I am here to offer my condolences on the…passing…of your late husband.”  The steely eyes glinted with a triumphant look.  

     Leia’s mouth pursed into a grim line.  “Of course you are,” she finally said, motioning for him to sit, though it took every last bit of her will to wring any words out.  

     “Let’s dispense of the pleasantries.  Shall we?”  Hux said as he arranged himself carefully on the chair.  Leia would have laughed had it been any other time at how positively stuck up the young man sitting in front of her looked.  

    “I didn’t realise the First Order’s General was barely out of diapers.  So young and so accomplished.  What sort of treachery must you have committed to have gained such status? “ she asked coolly as she sat opposite of the man.  His soulless eyes narrowed dangerously.

     “I am no more of an anomaly than you are, General Organa.  The Imperial Records indicate that you were barely on the other side of 20 when you helped bring down the second Death Star. Clearly our hands are both bathing in blood?  Only, you are a _lifetime_ ahead of me,”  he said in silky smooth tones. 

     Leia felt her temper bubbling inside of her and she struggled to keep her tone civil.  “So what are you really doing here, then, Hux?  You’ve come on the pretext of offering condolences and we could of course, exchange barbs all day.  But other than that, I don’t think we have too much to discuss.” 

     Hux gave a flat laugh. “Oh but that is where we differ in opinion.  I am here because _I can be here_.  I thought I should demonstrate that wherever you and your precious Resistance go, we are watching and we can follow.  You attempted to keep the location of Han Solo’s funeral a secret, and yet, _here we are_.”  

     Leia’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “You are telling me this for a reason, so spit it out.”

     Hux now sat back, his smugness written all over this sharp features.   “You must know that you are quickly losing ground in many of your key colonies. Surely, you must know that...what with even all of your _aging_ …equipment and infrastructure.”  

     “I think the real question is.  Why do you know that?” Leia asked, refusing to take his bait on the Resistance’s comparably meagre resources.   

     “We have our ways.”

     “You must certainly do.  Perhaps since you are here, you can tell me how where all our shipments have been going?  Who is doing your dirty work?”  

     Hux’s eyebrow was raised coolly.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.  The First Order has no need to work with anybody.  We are mighty enough on our own.”

     “Up or down one Starkiller Base, it doesn’t matter, I suppose?   What, when you are stealing trillions of credits everywhere?”  Leia asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

     The young General’s nostrils flared.  “Well, however ignorant you are of the Resistance’s many shortcomings, it seems that you are in the position of needing our help.  Otherwise, whatever small territories you claim will slip through your fingers.

     “And so what do you propose?”

     “A diplomatic gathering, a gala if you will, wherein we discuss the terms of a peace treaty.”

     Leia gave the General a disbelieving look.  “You and I both know that the First Order is not interested in peace.  You seek only domination.”  

     “Well, then it’s such a pity that your colonies see themselves being used and starved by the Resistance.  What good is the freedom you so valiantly struggle for when your stomach aches with hunger and your children are dying of preventable diseases?”  he asked.  He leaned forward.  “You owe it to your people to find solutions for them, don’t you?  The way I see it, General Organa, you have no choice but to negotiate with us.”  

     Leia paused for a moment.  “You really have a lot of gall, don’t you?” she asked.

     “Correction, General Organa.  What we have is technology.  Organization.  Knowledge.  Ability.  We bring order wherever we go.”

     “You bring destruction and misery.”  

     “There are of course, costs, to implementation.  But you’ve discovered the costs to implementation of your own principles, have you not?”  Hux looked so smug as he spoke those words with utter precision, as if cutting her most vital places with a blade.

     “You really are a monster.”  Leia was horrified by the unfettered cruelty of the young man sitting before her.  

     General Hux straightened the cuffs of his uniform absently as he stood to walk over to the window.  When he turned back, he spoke in a sly and hushed tone.  “You know, it’s incredible that your son, Kylo Ren, is still so similar to you,” he said.  The abominable man was twisting his knife as hard as he could.  Leia’s eyes widened as she realised that the General knew of her son’s secret identity.  She had never been sure before if anyone other than Snoke knew.  

     “The man you call _Kylo Ren_ is not my son.  He is the creation of Snoke and the First Order,”  she said in a low tone.  

     “Oh, but it _is_ such a matter of perspective, isn’t it?  Kylo Ren is the product of _your_ failure.  Don’t get me wrong.  I would love nothing more than to be rid of him and his erratic, childish tantrums.  He really is quite costly to maintain and a blaring source of inefficiency.   But the Supreme Leader sees in him potential, and he’s been busy ensuring that Kylo Ren would complete his training.  I’m pleased to inform you that your son’s fall is now complete.  And I would say, especially thanks to you.”  

     Leia could feel herself being enveloped in a black cloud of anger, while the energy inside of her became red and inflamed.  Her thoughts went to her hands, which trembled with the urge to strangle the man standing before her.  It was almost too much to bear, like an unstoppable current which flowed from the intention in her mind outwards to her pulsing fingertips.  She was outside of herself, feeling as if she would let her anguish drive her until she felt a familiar energy brush across her, like a fresh breeze after an oppressive storm.  It gave her a moment of pause and enough to regain her composure. When she looked up at the young General, her usually poised face was set in stone.  

     “You have taken a grave chance in coming here, have you not?  I could seize you now.”  

     “You could.  But do think of all of the people that would get needlessly killed here in the process.  This place is positively crawling with First Order agents,” Hux said with a self-satisfied shrug of his thin shoulders.  

     Leia turned away to stare out of the window, wondering how such a smooth day could have been derailed like this.  Something caught her eyes - a tall, broad-shouldered figure in midnight blue that moved quite a ways down along the upper walls of the palace.  There was something familiar about his movement,  though she could not read anything from him or place it.  She was mesmerised by his swift and stealthy movement, which was unexpected for a man of his size.  She watched as he disappeared from her sight for a few more moments, until she suddenly remembered the reality of who was standing near her.  

     She turned back to Hux, abruptly, wanting to be rid of him.  “You will have my decision within three working days.  Now I trust you and your First Order presence will clear out of her promptly as a sign of good faith.”  

     Hux seemed surprised by her sudden amnesty but quickly recovered.  He nodded and walked quickly over to the door.  “Very well then.  I do urge you to consider our proposal seriously.  Things will only get worse otherwise.  Much worse.  Hungry people can be such savages, after all.”  

     “I’ll take that into consideration,”  Leia said coldly, as she followed him to the door.  Yanis was awaiting her on the other side, his face betraying his relief as he saw she was unharmed. As Hux passed him, the young officer leaned towards her and whispered.  

     “You have another guest.  A man by the name of Jacen Naberrie?” 

     “Jacen Naberrie,” she repeated softly as her eyebrows furrowed together, her breath catching in her throat.  The brush of energy she had felt earlier when confronting Hux flitted past her conciousness again as she peered down the corridor to see a pitiful old man in long non-descript robes, hunched over horribly, making his way up the hallway on his cane.  Hux and Phasma were about to sweep past him, when the man tripped slightly, casting his cane across Hux’s path and causing the General to lose his footing a bit.  When Hux recovered, he cast the man a haughty look.  

     “Old fool!” he hissed.  The old man reached out and grabbed the young General, fixing the man with his bottomless blue stare.  He did not say anything, only cocking his head to the side as if considering something.  A small smile curled the bearded lips before he let go, and Hux shivered visibly.  Regaining his upright posture, he brushed off his sleeve distastefully as if he’d just emerged from a pile of filth. 

     “Ugghh,  He gives me the creeps,”  Hux said, resuming his stride alongside Captain Phasma.  Phasma gave a short laugh.

     “And that’s coming from someone who spends time with Supreme Leader Snoke,” she said dryly.  

     The man’s eyebrow rose as he made his way slightly quicker to the door, now that the General and Captain had moved out of sight.   Leia opened the door wider, her heart beating wildly in her chest.  She nodded to her security detail that they should pull back.  

     “Aren’t you a little tall to be Master Yoda?” she asked, barely able to contain her smile any longer.  The bearded man straightened up, throwing his cane to the side after the door closed behind them.  

     “Luke!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.  She drew her brother to her closely, crushing him in her grasp.  They stood holding each other for a few long moments.  

     “Leia.  I’m sorry. I tried to get to you earlier -“

     She leaned back giving him an admonishing look.  “Do you mean today or sometime during the past six years?’

     Luke cringed. “I guess I deserved that.”  

     “I’ll say.” she said dryly, as she took his hand and led him to the chairs.  “Please, sit down.  Can I get you some tea?”

     “Anything stronger?” he asked.  

     Leia’s eyebrow rose.  “That kind of day for you, too?”  she asked.  He nodded, a sad expression filling his features.  

     “I imagine it’s been that kind of day for you.  I am so sorry, Leia.  For everything.  For all of it,” he said, as he rubbed his hand across his face. “Dare I ask how it went today?  I was here, but thought it better to remain unseen.”

     Leia sat back now, taking a moment to really absorb her brother’s sudden appearance.  The weariness she felt was reflected in the tired and worn look of his face.  She shook her head sadly.  “It went off without a hitch, at least until just now, which is all I can really say.  It was a day I never dreamed of facing so soon, and especially the way - ,“ her voice broke as tears resurfaced.  Luke leaned forward to take her frigid hands between his flesh and robotic one.  

     “Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you, Leia.  Please believe me,” his eyes implored her.  She nodded.  

     “I know, Luke.  I know. I just never thought that things would come to this.  I would have thought that we were done paying our price a long time ago,”  she said, the resignation in her tone coming through.  

     Luke nodded.  “I think of that often too.  How it all went wrong,”  he said softly.  

     Leia looked at their linked hands, contemplating the robotic one which she seemed to observe with some surprise.  “What made you come, Luke?”   

     “It was time.”  

     “Let me guess.  The Force told you to?”  Leia’s words were faintly accusing.   

     “Because I had to be here for you.”  

      Leia’s stoic expression crumpled as she absorbed his words, and she was overtaken by a tidal wave of tears.  Luke sat with her for a long time in silence, gently warming her cold hands in his own.  Eventually, she looked up at him, her eyes expressing her awe, and spoke.  

     “You’ve grown so powerful,” she said.  “I can feel it.”  

     Luke gave the mildest incline of his head.  “And you’ve been practicing.”  

     She sighed.  “Yes…and no.  I just can’t dedicate myself the way you do.  Don’t you ever think that the Force is responsible for the mess that is our family?  It divided our parents.  It divided us from them.  It divided us.  It divided Han from his son.  And it took Ben from me.  It cast son against his own father. It sent Han to his own death by the hand of his son.  _The damned Force_ \- it’s the only constant in all of this craziness”

     Luke's head bowed slowly as he watched his sister’s anguish play across her face.  “Han was dying, you know,”  he said gently.  “This day was coming sooner than you might have thought.”

     Leia’s eyes searched Luke’s desperately for understanding.  “What?”

     He nodded again, as his hand stroked his moustache absently.  “I first felt that something was amiss with him through the Force awhile ago.  I mean, more than normal,” he said, a hint of irony to his tone.  Leia couldn’t suppress a small smile as she recalled her husband’s talent for finding trouble.  

     “When I meditated on it,  the answer came to me suddenly.  He had good days and bad days.  I saw him in the midst of a very bad day.  You’ve heard of bloodburn?  The illness that strikes pilots?  I guess all of his racing and such caught up with him, and you know him, never taking care to visit the medic and to see to it that he was really ok.”  

     Leia blinked with shock.  “He never said anything.”  

     Luke gave a gentle shrug.  “You know he never would.  He was too proud.  It was his way.  But he would want you to know that you didn’t send him to his death at all.  Don’t ever think that.  Han went doing what he loved most - saving the galaxy, fighting for the people and things he loved.  He would never have wanted to deteriorate to the point where he would be dependent on others.  Search your feelings, Leia, you already know that,”  he said softly.  

     “But that's just stupid.  I could have taken care of him. I could have -,”  her voice trailed off.  Of all the nerf-herding, stupidest things he could have done, not telling her about this had to be close to the top.

     Luke shook his head gently.  “No, Leia.  He would never have wanted that. Otherwise he wouldn't be Han.”

     Leia’s face fell as another gush of tears streamed down her face.  They sat together in companionable silence.  Words were unnecessary between them as they shared their thoughts and feelings.  The bond between them was as strong as ever and for this, Leia was glad.  A thought suddenly came to her. 

     “Luke, where is Rey?”  she asked.  

     “She is where I left her,”  he said.  

     Leia gave him a scolding look.  “I am sure she would have wanted to come.”

    “She did.”  

     “And?”

     “I explained to her that it would be difficult to cover both of our presences for the time being.    She is not strong enough in the Force yet to mask her signature and it was far too risky at this sensitive stage.  She eventually accepted this.”  

     The look Leia gave Luke was doubtful.  “Luke, I hope you know what you are doing with her.  She strikes me as very strong willed and independent.  And this must have upset her as I know she felt so strongly for Han.”

     “I know.”

     “I think about her frequently.  And she has also become stronger in the Force, and I sense…is it conflict within her?  Is she comfortable with training?”

     “No, she is not.  I will train her only for a short time.  After that, I can do no more.”  

     Leia gave Luke a perplexed expression.  “What does that mean?”

     Luke chuckled a bit, and then a sigh.  “She is a puzzle, Leia.  And she is probably one of the most powerful force users I have ever heard of, at the same time.  She has great potential, but also the possibility of being a great danger to others and to herself.”  

     “So when you’ll offer a short course?  And then what will happen?  You will let her out half-trained?  That doesn’t sound wise.”

     “Who said she would be half-trained?  She will be fully-trained,”  he said.  

     Leia was about to speak when another knock came at the door.  “What is going on today?’  She muttered under her breath and rose to make her way over the door, hampered as she was by her enormous skirts.  She was surprised to find a shaken and young Resistance officer standing there looking as pale as a ghost.  

     “Yes, what is it…? “

     “I have instructions to pass this to you.  It is is for your to view and decide what to do with it,” the young woman said, relating the words as if under command.  Leia leaned back into her heels as she took in the nervous young girl, who she recognised as the usually well-composed Treya.  She placed a concerned hand on her shoulder.  

    “Who gave it to you?”  

    “I don’t know, ma’am.”  

     “What?  And then how should I should know it is to be trusted, especially with the First Order everywhere today?”  

     Luke had come to stand behind his sister, watching the young woman carefully.  He made eye contact with the trembling officer and quickly searched her memory.

     “The package is ok, Leia.  It holds information of great importance.”  he said, seeming a little chagrined himself.  

     “But you’re not telling me something,”  she said.  

     “For now, it contains all you need to know.”  

 

*******

     Luke and Leia finished their visit a little while later after Leia had filled him in on everything the Resistance was doing.  She would view the contents of the odd little packet a bit later. Luke sadly made ready to leave his sister.

     “I hope it won’t be another six years before I see you again,”  she said, her tone wistful.  She was unwilling to let his hand go.  

     Luke sighed. “Not so long as that at all.  We will see each other soon.  Our rendezvous will be at the diplomatic gala. Or before then, if needed.”

     “Are you sure I must agree to it?”  she asked.  “The thought of negotiating with the First Order..,” her voice trailed off. 

     “I am under no illusion that there will be any real negotiations.  That young General positively reeks of Snoke.  But there are opportunities there that can’t be underestimated. In the meantime, please do as I asked you and find out what you can about Rey.  I am almost sure the old Imperial Records must contain information about her origins.  Before the First Order finds out.  Before Snoke.”  

     Luke readied himself to leave, pulling his cloak over his head and rolling his shoulders a few times before taking on the hunched pose he had entered with.  

    “Can you feel him, Luke?  Anything of Ben?”  Leia asked, the words finally bursting from her.

     Luke straightened up and looked her in the eye.   “Ben is a torrent of emotion as ever.” 

    “And emotion leads to the dark side, isn’t that what the Jedi always said?”  she asked, feeling that familiar panic wash over her.

     Luke laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “Emotion can be a weakness if completely untethered…but it may yet prove to be Ben’s strength.  Don’t give up hope.  We haven’t lost him until we’ve lost him.”

     Leia gave a curt laugh.  “What more is there to lose?”

     “Plenty.”  

     Luke gave his sister a kiss on the cheek before turning to hobble down the hallway.  “Never give up hope.  It’s what separates us from the dark side.” 

     “Foolish as it sounds, I always thought love would conquer all of that.  That it was the strongest thing in all of the universe,”  she said bitterly.  

     “It is, Leia.  It is.”  

     Leia watched, supporting herself against the edge of the door, as her dear brother made his way out of her sight.  With a sad shake of her head, she closed the door firmly behind her trying to find the hope that he had implored from her.

 

******

 

     Luke made his way to the transport pad where he knew Chewie awaited, glad to be almost finished with this charade.  In reality, his back ached with the hobbled pose he had adopted as part of his disguise.  Chewbacca had attended the funeral and had spent time with the Princess before holing up on the ship for the rest of the day, clearly not wanting any company.

     Luke was just descending onto the jetty when a strong feeling stopped him in mid-stride. 

     “Jayyyyyyyyycen,”   It was the unmistakable voice of Maz Kanata.  

     “ _If you blow my cover, I will personally sell you to a Hutt,"_    Luke said through the Force.

     “ _Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Master Skywalker, that is not the way of the Jedi,_ ” Maz scolded as she approached the hunched man.

     “It is of this Jedi.  Now whatever do you want?”  he asked conspiratorially.  He looked at Maz suspiciously, but was in fact unsurprised that she had figured out who he was.  

     “All that time alone has done nothing for your interpersonal skills.  Is that how you greet an old friend?”  she asked, large eyes staring at him in reprimand.  

     “Friend?  Is that what you call yourself?  After what you’ve pulled?” he asked, though his eyes held some humour.  

     “Forgiveness is the tool of the Jedi,”  Maz said impishly.  She stared into the deep blue eyes. “So the time has come, has it?” she asked.  Luke only bowed his head in acknowledgment.  

     “Well I have passed something along to Chewbacca.  You’ll be needing it soon, I think.”  She shook her head sadly.  

     “It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”  Luke asked.  

     “What?  Yes, yes, of course,” she said distractedly.    "But I was actually thinking about Chewbacca and I.  We just can’t seem to get our timing right.” 

     Luke gave Maz an exasperated look before chuckling a little.  “Nothing ever changes, does it Maz?”  

     “Oh but it does,” she said, her magnified eyes looking up a the Jedi meaningfully.  “And this is just the beginning.”  

     Luke nodded before turning to the ship.  

      _“May the Force be with you.  Force knows, you'll need it._ ” Maz said through the Force, as she watched the retreating figure.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for all of your continued readership, comments, kudos, and support. Putting my writing out there for so many to see is a huge step for me, and every time I do it, it's like I duck under the covers and hide, peeking out once in awhile until I feel confident to step out again. I've seen some articles where Adam Driver mentions that he hates watching himself on screen. I completely understand where he's coming from, because I hate re-reading my work! But rather than having that fear stopping me from publishing here, I am now just diving in and posting it up. Still, I've just now gathered the courage to go back and check over the previous chapters, and will be correcting all the grammatical errors and typos in the coming days to improve their readability.


	10. Moving forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren is busily making his way to Ahch-To, with just a few stops on the way...

     Kylo Ren descended the ramp of his shuttle onto the hot sands of Jakku, and was instantly reminded of the contrast to his previous appearance of not so long ago.   Where he had last arrived under the cover of night, he now appeared in the light of day.  The “backwater” planet, as Hux referred to it, was deceptively still and unchanging.  But as always, he felt a rumble of the Force whenever he touched its surface.  There was something about it that reminded him of his Master, as if the subtlest strands of Force energy were coloured by his inky signature.  Ren tugged at his short chestnut tunic, and adjusted the black band around his narrow waist to distract from any thoughts involving Snoke that could unintentionally provoke his master’s scrutiny, even at this great distance.   

      In his dark tailored trousers, tall dark boots, and long stone coloured cloak, Ren knew he would still draw attention.  His clothing spoke of a refinement that wasn’t commonly seen on Jakku, but he had been grateful to find them buried in the back of his closets so he did not have to place an order for uncharacteristic garb.   And only a very critical eye would notice that the tunic’s sleeves were a tad too short, and slightly strained across the back as he was certainly bigger and broader than when had he last wore them.  He also did not don his mask, as he didn’t want to be immediately recognised when he approached Niima Outpost.  Instead, he wore a dark grey balaclava across the bottom of his face, and a pair of grey goggles.  The heat of the sun now burnt through to his skin, and immediately he was relieved he had chosen the lighter clothes, as completely alien they felt to him otherwise.  He would change them as soon as he had the chance.  

      Ren kept himself carefully hidden in the Force, though he still used it to move stealthily across the desert.  He observed everything as he passed, noting the poverty that was clearly at play here amongst the population.  But he had seen this all before, and so it came as no surprise.  He had seen it all in the mind of the scavenger.  And thanks to her, he knew exactly where he would go.  He made his way up to the ramshackle office of the scrapyard purveyor, and plopped a shiny piece of machinery on his table.  

      The Crolute behind the counter perked up immediately as he eyed the enticing piece of equipment greedily.  “You’re new,” he said nonchalantly, his bulging eyes taking in the newcomer’s appearance.

      “I understand that you buy things, and hopefully for you, it’s for a fair price,”  Kylo Ren spoke in a low tone, ignoring Plutt’s sloppy attempt to extract information.  

      “Where did you get this?”  asked Plutt as he examined the item as if it was a giant bauble.  The Crolute was nearly salivating as he speculated its’ worth.  “It looks like its come off of a pretty recent ship.  If you've got more of this, we could come to a very interesting deal.”

      “I am not looking for a working relationship.  I offer this only because I require information from you.  It’s a one time deal.”  

      “Oh?  What kind of information?”  asked Plutt.  “Information can be a very expensive thing.”

      “So are pieces of First Order ships.”  

      Plutt raised one worm-like eyebrow.  “Who are you?  It’s not easy to get First Order things.  It’s a tightly controlled market.”  

      “Who I am will only become important if you continue to ask too many questions,”  Kylo Ren said, his eyes narrowing dangerously.  He was already tiring of this Crolute’s plodding discourse.  He felt his palms itching with the desire to use his usual technique of information extraction.  “Tell me about the girl - the scavenger called Rey.”

      “What’s there to tell? She scavenges, I pay her.”

      “Not very much from what I understand.”

      “I didn’t think that the _First Order_ was that concerned about the treatment of slaves,”  said Plutt in an openly triumphant tone, clearly thinking he was very clever for figuring out that the man standing at his counter was a First Order agent.  

      “Perhaps not.  But I am asking and I will have the information I am asking for by one means or another.  Now you either give it to me or _I will extract it from you_.  Your choice.”

      “As I said before, information is expensive, even if it’s about a worthless slave,”  Plutt said, staring up at Kylo Ren defiantly.  

      “I warn you to not tire me,”  said Kylo Ren, his voice taking on a darker edge.  “Now tell me about the girl.  I want to know where she came from?”  

      “And I warn you not to threaten me,”  Plutt hissed, though Ren could feel the panic rising inside of the Crolute.  

      “Ahhh, the defiance,”  Kylo Ren almost laughed at the pathetic bravado the cowering mass in front of him was hiding behind.    He raised his hand and dove into the creature’s mind.  What Ren saw could have made him physically ill had he not been steeled by year’s of suffering, and witness to unspeakable cruelties himself.  The depravity of a mind driven only by profit motive and baser instincts thoroughly revolted him in its banality, but in spite of that, he found what he was looking for relatively easily and recorded it to his memory before finally releasing the Crolute.  He breathed deeply a moment as he reconciled with the images of a distraught young Rey now burned into his mind.  She - barely a smidge of a girl with her anguish and cries - more staggering than anything else.  

     Plutt fell back a bit, bringing a fat fingered hand to wipe away the blood coming from his nose, as his eyes bulged with the terror of knowing that the elegantly dressed man in front of him was truly no ordinary person.  “Who- who are you?”  he frothed, pressing a button beneath the counter.

     “It doesn’t matter.  But what you did just now - that was a mistake.  Your friends will not be able to help you.  I gave you the opportunity to cooperate.  As I said, your choice.”  Kylo Ren said, knowing Plutt’s help would arrive shortly and that the despicable creature was laughingly unaware that his mind had been pillaged.    “Tell me, where is the girl?”

     “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?  She stole my ship, the Millennium Falcon, and left.  I have my people looking for it all over the place.”  

     Kylo Ren's eyes narrowed as he sensed the arriving goons that Unkar Plutt had sent for him.  _Brutes_ , he thought, with very little going on inside of their easily controlled minds.  He rolled his shoulders casually before throwing the burly alien creatures away roughly with a flick of his wrist, hearing a sickening crack and thud as they slammed into adjacent walls and fell limply to the sand.  He turned back to look at the now openly alarmed Plutt.  

      “Now, what did you say about the Millennium Falcon?”

      “Just that I want my ship back.  What’s it to you anyways?”

      Kylo Ren had exhausted his uncharacteristically long patience.   He didn’t even know why he had allowed the Crolute to live so long.  “That ship doesn’t belong to you, _blobfish,_ ” he said, that last word sounding strange, and yet, still entirely natural coming from his mouth. “It belongs to Han Solo.”

      “Yeah, and he’s dead.  Last I checked, dead men don’t fly space ships,”  the Crolute said, laughing with genuine mirth.  

      Kylo Ren made a sharp sound and drew his lightsaber, taking off one of the Plutt’s arms in a flash of red. The blubbering mass fell to the ground clutching his cauderised stump and Kylo Ren wondered why he had not just killed the despicable creature.  A commotion broke out around the dark Jedi and he stepped forward threateningly.

      “Anyone else?” he asked.  The group of onlookers shook their head fearfully as Ren quickly entered each and every mind, "convincing them" that they had not seen what they had just seen.  He gave the whimpering Crolute one last look.  “If you do come across the Falcon again - keep it safe for me, will you?  I’ll be back for it,”  he said with a wave of his hand before turning to walk away.  

*****

     Kylo Ren now sat aboard his shuttle, approaching the last refuel station he would need before his arrival at Ahch-to, elbows on knees, and wringing his hands through his hair.  Nearly everything thus far had gone according to his plan, save for the altercation with Plutt.  He had not intended to draw out his lightsaber, as that had basically defeated his disguise.  Although he had wiped every mind present, he knew that Plutt’s wounds would reveal the nature of the weapon that had caused them.  His every instinct had told him to keep his profile as low as possible, and his momentary loss of temper had nearly derailed that.  

      _“Yeah, and he’s dead.  Last I checked, dead men don’t fly space ships.”_    The Crolute’s gleeful words rung over and over against the gentle hum of the ship’s engines, battering Ren’s mind with the truth of the Falcon who would never see its Captain again.  Those two entities were forever intertwined for him, as he never pictured Han Solo without the Falcon somewhere in the background.  Ren could not help but recall how he had boarded the Falcon - now in a much more derelict state than what he remembered - in what seemed like only moments before that fateful meeting on the bridge in Starkiller…  The weight of the last few days suddenly came barreling over him.  

       _He was clad in regal robes of midnight blue as he walked along the palace ramparts.  Down below he saw the procession and fanfare that followed what he knew was a symbolic casket.  His father had been cremated with Starkiller, though the scoundrel known as Han Solo would not escape a proper hero’s burial. The sleek long box of mahogany wood, metal and glass was followed by a small group of Resistance fighters, and was flanked by Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, and led by...General Organa._

       _Was she really so small and fragile?  It didn’t fit with the image of his mother he always held as a figure larger than life, with boundless energy and determination.  She had always been a force to be reckoned with.  Kylo Ren watched the diminutive figure in a dress of coincident midnight blue that positively engulfed her.  His heart was pounding wildly in his chest as he saw the evidence of her sorrow etched deeply into a face that seemed devoid of the light he once knew there.  Her bearing was at the same time regal and resigned, proud, and yet, defeated.  He almost turned and fled at that moment, wishing desperately to attack something with his lightsaber but he caught himself at the last minute, remembering his objective._

       _Kylo Ren had noticed the First Order ships, as he had expected given his combing of Hux’s thoughts that day during the audience with Snoke.  Ren had taken every precaution and had arrived disguised as a transport pilot, having actually piloted a transport to the planet, leaving his own ship safely hidden away.  It had been surprisingly easy to commandeer a transport vessel and shuttle an entire horde of tourists and commuters during the three hour ride.  The real pilot was tied up in a utility closet in the station somewhere, in a deep sleep.  No one would even realise the switch until Ren was long gone.  It was just the kind of audacious stunt that..that another Solo — well, he wouldn’t think about that now, even as it had been oddly exhilarating._

_The simple but elegant ceremony had drawn to a close and all of the attendees had slowly filtered away.  The place was still buzzing with Resistance and security forces, but he used the Force to direct their attention away from him.  It was exhausting to say the least, because to use the Force too liberally meant drawing attention from other force sensitives…like his mother.  He worked hard to maintain that fine balance, at one point feeling the brush of a familiar presence that caused him to look up into the towers of the palace.   He redoubled his efforts before spotting a lone, young Resistance officer.  He pulled her quickly aside into the shadows, holding a gloved hand over her mouth._

_“You will give this to General Organa directly.  Tell her it is for her to view and to decide what to do with it.”_

       _The young and frightened girl trembled in his grasp as she repeated his words like a mantra._

       _“And you will not remember who gave this to you.”  he said, as he folded her fingers over the small black packet.  “Now go,” and with those words he released her and watched as she walked rather dazedly towards the palace’s main entrance._

      Kylo Ren slowly came back to the present, rubbing his eyes tiredly.  He was running only on adrenaline, and nervous anticipation, as sleep had evaded him these past few days.  He ran through the landing procedures at the fuelling station with his mind on auto-pilot and quickly barked orders at the crew who were grateful to quickly nod and scamper away from him.  He watched the workers at the station do everything he had asked with lightening speed, undoubtedly emboldened by the promise of the extra credits he had waved in front of them.  He turned his attention to the final step on his mission - to clear the ship of any remaining trackers and changing his ship’s transmission signature.  No one in the First Order would even suspect that his knowledge of mechanics could extend so far, he mused, as he collected the myriad of devices that no doubt Hux had ordered implanted on his ship. 

      “ _Fool,_ ” he thought with his customary rancour towards the General as he gathered the last of the trackers.  Hux’s over-reliance on technology was really his downfall.  

      The crew on the station continued to steer far clear from him, dressed as he was again in his customary black regalia, and so the hangar was empty save for a vessel that belonged to a rowdy band of Kanji club pirates, and who fortunately had arrived before him.  He had scanned the station for their cloying minds, and quickly discovered them disembarked to the bar, with intentions to pass their day with copious drinks and other distractions.  A sly smile spread under his mask as an idea came to mind.  He certainly held no love for them as their interference with Han Solo had always been a source of conflict between his parents.  Once he was certain he could move undetected, Kylo Ren made his way quickly to their ship, in the process turning out all the security cameras in the bay.  Lowering the ships ramp, he made quick work of placing the trackers throughout the ship before descending the ramp and returning purposefully to his own ship.  _Let the pirates sweat it out under the pursuit of the First Order_ , he thought wickedly.  

 


	11. Forces of Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, after a long break, we finally have the meeting! Sorry for the delay, but updates should be coming more regularly from now on. I did mention this is a slow burn, right? Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: mild torture (mind invasion) is described here.

_Come_.

     Rey blinked as she stood looking out over the temples for what seemed the hundredth time that day, wondering whose familiar voice spoke so enticingly in her ear.    It wasn’t _his_ voice - as _he_ had been unusually silent in her mind over the past few days.  In place of the connection was something like static at the end of an open comm link line - as if things were happening in the background, but she couldn’t decipher any of it.  While there had been an occasional surge of “noise” over the preceding days, causing her to gasp to attention at times, Kylo Ren hadn’t deliberately interfered with her or reached out in any way.  And for this, she was grateful.  It had emboldened her to access the Force more deeply, and she had made excellent headway in the lessons Luke had left for her. 

     But as Rey cast her eyes upon those odd little domed structures framed by foreboding grey skies, she fought with herself.  Accessing the Force more deeply also meant it was increasingly difficult to silence its call.  The last time she had heard it beckon, it had opened up an entire world to her - a world that was terrifying.  What did it promise to show her this time?   If the temples’ call had been a whisper across her consciousness since her arrival, their insistence roared for her recognition now.  It was that urgency which scared her.

     Part of it - she knew - was Luke.  The Jedi had returned quietly, but noticeably energised by his visit to Leia, and this despite the circumstances that had demanded the visit.  He had relayed all the details Rey wanted so desperately to know, but seemed both absorbed in thought, and at the same time, nervously anticipating something.  His mind was impenetrable as always, but his furtive glances to the sky only confirmed to Rey a vaguely expectant feeling she felt fluttering around her awareness.  And now, somewhere inside the temples she had not yet dared to enter, Luke had been meditating.  _For days._

      “Kriff, kriff, kriff,” she said, as she turned back to her work in the garden again, humming a melody she had learned as a child on Jakku whenever she had felt the need to calm her nerves.  But no matter how much she tried, she could not capture that feeling of peace that working with plants or her song usually brought to her. In the time she’d spent on Ahch-to, Luke had not yet told her very much about the temples, and truthfully, she hadn’t asked.  It was almost as if each of them was awaiting something - she like a small and uncertain doe skittering on the edge of a woods, and he, as if looking for a signal from her or from someone or something else.  And so the temples had remained mostly unmentioned despite their looming presence. 

       _“What could he possibly be doing in there?”_   she wondered out loud as she glanced at the temples again.  Luke was truly an enigma to her.  What motivated him, she wondered?  He had been living this hermit’s existence for years, connected to nothing but the Force.  Was this…solitary existence…in store for her?  Would her power compel her to leave people behind as she assumed it had for him, or would it force her hand the way it had Leia’s - whittling her family down to nothing?  Had it already done that to her?  Was the Force the reason why she was left abandoned on Jakku for all of those years?  Rey had  experienced a momentary relief from these doubts when Luke had gently asked her to remain behind from Han Solo’s funeral.  She’d been angry initially at losing the opportunity to pay her respects, and to join her friends in their mourning, but a part of her - a big part of her - had felt a gigantic wave of relief as his request had begun to percolate.  _Luke was choosing his family over all of the potential pitfalls in making an appearance at the funeral.  He was choosing to be there for his sister._ Those thoughts had comforted Rey immensely and had no doubt also fuelled her progress in practice.  Maybe there was a way - she thought - to use the force and yet not have to be a kriffing force hermit.  

     Another glance at the temples.  The afternoon light was fading quickly and the air was laden with moisture.  Surely it would storm tonight, and still there was no sign of her Master. Rey gave a small smile as she savoured the words - _her_ Master.  Despite all of her doubts about him and her purpose there, _she_ had a someone, even if just a Master.  A clap and roll of thunder caused Rey to jump and lose her line of thought.  She still wasn’t used to that sound, as often as it had stormed on Ahch-to since she’d been there.

      _Maybe she should go looking for Luke?_   Rey sighed, thinking that maybe an exploratory jaunt would resolve the frazzled feeling inside of her.  And why that frazzling reminded her of that hissing red lightsaber, she didn’t know.  She slowly approached the structures, walking around to what she considered the back side and noticed the doorway that led to underneath where she had seen Luke enter a few times.  He had said it led to a network of underground tunnels within the temple, connecting to various chambers within the structure.  This evening, she was drawn to those steps, pulled as if by a magnet to the entrance.  _Maybe she was sensing Luke_ , she thought, and so she moved a bit closer.  

     Rey stepped carefully down the stairs feeling a few enormous blobs of rain fall upon her.  _Was it once a cave_ , she wondered?  There certainly was a natural depression of ground there, and remarkably, there were the gnarled roots of trees overgrown to form a near solid canopy over the tunnel though there were no trees in the immediate vicinity.  She looked back towards the path she had come, taking a deep breath.   The daylight was fading fast and it would be only ever darker down this path.  As a scavenger, she was used to poking around in dark places and most of the times it had turned out okay.  But then there were the other times when…something had lurked in the dark awaiting her.  She felt goosebumps rise across her neck and arms.  She closed her eyes for a moment and stood, centring herself.  Rey pictured herself as a source of light that would illuminate the inside of this place, giving up its secrets to her to help her on the strange journey her life had become.  When she opened her eyes, they flashed with ferocity and resolve, and she slowly but confidently stepped further into the opening, allowing her eyes time to adjust to her surroundings.

     “Luke?” she called, her voice sounding so small.  Her ears, ever so used to listening for the smallest and most peculiar sounds to warn her of danger, were returned with only silence.  Deafening silence.  She moved deeper still, aware that the light behind her was already swallowed up by the darkness in front of her. Rey’s eyebrows furrowed as she reached out to the the sides of this structure, surprised to find the walls were more solid than how they appeared.  They didn’t feel like earth or tree, but perhaps, cold, moss-covered stone?  She crept along slowly, listening with all senses, and especially with the Force, as Luke had shown her.  

     Whatever beckoned her forward caused her to forget the darkness momentarily, but then when she touched the walls again, she drew in a sharp breath.  Smooth, cold metal?  How was that even possible?  She moved her hands along the surface in a panic, wondering how it could feel so much like the insides of the hulking Imperial Star Destroyers she had scavenged her entire life. 

     The sudden hum of a lightsaber caused her eyes to snap back to the space ahead of her.  She blinked as the image of a man in a long brown robe came into the view, one with greying hair and a beard.  Was it Luke?  It was a Jedi for sure. The man held up his blue lightsaber with his two hands in front of his face in an oddly meditative posture.  It was then she heard the thrum of a second lightsaber and she quickly squinted at the Jedi, trying to determine if it was Luke and why he left himself so undefended when someone approached with an ignited lightsaber?  The Jedi remained in his peaceful pose, refusing to take a battle ready stance.  The sudden and aggressive swoosh of the red lightsaber as it arced through the air caused Rey to jump and again take notice of its red glow framed by the shiny metal surfaces of a space ship or station.  Her eyes widened in horror as she looked back to the Jedi figure, realising that he would be struck down.

     “Nooooooo!” she screamed soundlessly as the red lightsaber did as expected, leaving just a pile of brown Jedi robes crumpled on the floor.  She was only vaguely aware of the the man clad in black who wielded the lethal saber as her heart nearly burst from her body with its maniacal beat.  “Noooooo!   Luke!” she cried desperately, though still no sound escaped.  

     Lights switched on around her, and Rey found herself strapped into that same interrogation chair as on Starkiller base.  She looked down and found her arms and legs bound just as before.  But as she looked around the room - which looked exactly the same, she realised that she was all alone.  She breathed a sigh of relief, though her body was still reeling from what she had seen.  She looked at the bindings.  This time she wouldn’t need to mind control a storm trooper to get the freedom she wanted - she would do it herself.  Rey looked at the bindings and willed them to open, driven by the need to return to the place where she had seen the Jedi - maybe Luke - struck down.  To her surprise, the cuffs complied immediately and she stepped quickly from the chair.  She rubbed her wrists, thinking how real it all felt, and then heard a familiar sound.  It was that sound she had heard many times in her dreams since Starkiller - of a red and angry lightsaber. 

     Rey stepped back immediately as Kylo Ren walked purposefully towards her with his lightsaber in hand, but was shocked as the looming black form stepped right through her like an apparition.  For a moment, she felt her entire being vibrate with energy greater than her own, and she felt as if she was being pulled in every direction, with her presence expanding over space and time.  But just as quickly, he disappeared behind her as if he had never been there.  When she looked up again, she realised she was again in the interrogation chair and was thoroughly startled.  Had she really gotten out in the first place?

     Now, as she looked again, _he_ was crouched there in front of her again.  

     “Why am I here again?” she asked, her voice betraying her disgust.  

     Kylo Ren did not speak.  His head - covered in that helmet and hood - only tilted slightly towards the side as he rose to his full height.  Rey gasped with fear, thinking how intimidating he looked as he approached.  And now she also knew that he was strong - absurdly so - given the fight he had put up with a bowcaster wound, and having just murdered his own father.  Her face twisted in hurt and rage as she remembered that fateful last sight of Han, and just as the dark figure of his son stopped at her side.  Her head was tossed back brutally against the chair with a simple force push of his black gloved hand.  

     “You are a beast,” she snarled, feeling oddly betrayed by his demeanour this time.  This wasn’t at all what she recalled…he had unmasked and had approached her...differently.  This monster hadn’t uttered a word, and was treating her with complete brutality.  She kept her head turned away from him as she couldn’t make herself to look at what he was doing even as she noticed the invasion of her mind, a feeling of claws scratching along the surface of her brain.  It was inhumane - this what she was feeling - as if long, spindly fingers poked around in her head, causing her to convulse to the point of nausea.  Her panicked mind willed the restraints to open as they had earlier, but this time, they would not obey.  Rey panted now, unsure of how much longer she could withstand this torture, this feeling of having her head torn apart by those merciless claws.  Her head turned slightly towards Ren and she was frightened to see exactly what she had felt - inhumanly long and gnarled fingers, with blackened talon-like nails emerging from the ends of the black gloves. The warped fingers grew ever longer, as if they would reach her widening eyes, only to pluck them from her face.   Rey’s scream was bloodcurdling, and again her head was snapped back against the chair.  She whimpered, looking around in desperation, as the room spun wildly.  Finally after all of her begging of the Force, the restraints were released and Rey ran as quickly as she could as the room fell away from behind her.   She heard the unmistakeable sound of that lightsaber following quickly behind her and she ran even faster through the darkness, her way only illuminated by the red glow of Kylo Ren’s saber.  She felt as if there was no oxygen to breathe anymore before she finally burst out in the stormy night air, only to be confronted by a tall, black clad figure. 

It was Kylo Ren, only unmasked this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still hard to believe that Carrie Fisher is gone. She really is the only Princess Leia out there, though I hope the storytellers will still manage to be true to the essence of the story they intended. Princess Leia/Carrie Fisher really deserve their happy endings, and I was hoping that is where JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, and Colin Trevorrow always intended to go.
> 
> As for this fan-fiction, there will be more angst for Leia, yes. But Leia always played a huge role in this narrative, and I always wanted to recognise her voice in this story. This hasn't changed for me, and so I will be sticking to the outline I have written. Leia will always deliver her special brand of wit and snark, she will have a few moments of badass-ery with the force, and she will have her happy ending too. It's just that Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben and what they get up to have a huge part to play in that, too! :-)))


	12. A Longest Night, Part One

     “You!”  she screamed into the drenching rains, her voice shrill with fear and rage.  “I should have killed you!  Why can’t you just leave me alone?  What have you done to Luke?” Rey’s voice took on an ever more hysterical edge as she yelled.  She glanced quickly behind her to see the entrance into the temples had disappeared completely from her view under the furrowed canopy, and that Kylo Ren stood blocking her only other means to escape.  Out of some previously unknown instinct, she raised her hand to force push the dark Jedi away, and was met with startling resistance as he responded in kind.  They struggled against each other for many moments, both gritting their teeth with intense effort as small frustrated sounds escaped them both.  Rey panted with sheer exertion, as she fought against Ren's unmovable energy, more practiced than her’s.  Her boots began sliding backwards on the muddy surface beneath her.  She felt that she would lose this battle this time, and she still didn’t even know if she had really emerged from the cave or not.        

      _I need to end this nonsense once and for all_ , she thought in desperation.  An idea came to her, and she wasn’t sure it would work but with a quick push of her second hand, she threw more Force energy at Kylo Ren, enough to set him a few steps back and to interrupt his own Force push.  Then, without warning, she dropped her hands and ducked, physically tackling him.  It was clear he didn’t expect her rough-housing tactics, and so the two of them tumbled to the ground, rolling over each other several times as the immense momentum of Rey’s charge subsided.  Rey felt her body protest over the rocks and hardened clumps of mud that stung and stabbed her as they rolled down the wet slope, only compounded by Ren’s weight pressing into her as they slid all over each other.  It was pouring rain, and she was now pinned to the ground by the heavy weight of Kylo Ren, his heartbeat pounding synchronously against her’s.  If this was still a vision, the energy surging between them felt unquestionably real.    

      “You!”  she screamed from beneath him, her voice dulled by the driving rain and her own breathlessness.  “You. Get. Off. Of. Me!” she hissed through gritted teeth, struggling against him as his wet hair flayed along her cheeks.   He raised his head alongside her face almost dazedly, wavy strands of wet hair also clinging to his face and obscuring a jagged line across just where she had stuck him with Luke’s lightsaber on Starkiller.  His face twisted into a disbelieving sneer.      

     “Are you insane?  You’re the one who charged at me!”  Ren's tone was thunderous.  “What’s wrong with you?”     

      “What’s wrong with me?  What’s wrong with me?” she demanded, as her eyes followed the revealed line of his scar.  It looked so real.  He felt so real, and he was so heavy.  Her momentary lapse of attention gave way to a sudden redoubling of her efforts to dislodge him from her body.  “ _You_ are asking me what is wrong with _me_?  Is this even real?  Are you really here?”        

     Kylo Ren gave her a strange look, as if he couldn’t quite place her words.  “What did you see?  Back there?”  he asked with surprising calm, pushing himself up off of her as he nodded towards the temple.  He sat back on his heels, looking at her curiously as she raised herself, panting, to her elbows.  The rain continued to drive itself into the ground around them.  He offered a hand to her, but she ignored it and scooted away.  Rey took a moment to breathe in the smell of the rain, which despite its intensity, she welcomed.  It gave her something else to think about except the man in front of her now.      

      “Why are you here?” she asked finally, her mind feeling already exhausted by all she had endured that evening.  The dark eyes met her’s and Rey felt their intensity and questioning.  “Or perhaps I should rephrase that?  Why are you everywhere?  I lived on Jakku on my own for fifteen years, and now, I am never alone.  Everywhere I turn, you are there?   I close my eyes, I sense you, I go to sleep, you are in my dreams, my nightmares.  I train and you’re moving my feet.  Now you’re here.  Or are you?  Why can’t you leave me alone?  You’re a homicidical, sadistic -”    

      “…monster,” he offered simply, standing up and brushing his robes off.  Rey now stood and they circled each other wearily, like two drained adversaries.  “You’ve already told me.”      

     Rey raised her head and stared at him defiantly.  “I want you out of my head,” she spat.  “I feel like I am losing my mind.  It’s torture not feeling like my mind is entirely my own.”        

     “Despite what you think of me, I would not wish that feeling on anybody,” he said, his voice rich and deep.   Suddenly Rey's mind was flooded with the image of those same gnarled hands she had seen in the temple, scratching along the surface of her mind.  They pulled away the layers, like an intruder mercilessly unconcerned with the curtains in a home's windows, determined to violate it by any means as they sought to access what was inside.  Those hands’ presence became more insistent - and never kind - as dark shadows framed her field of vision.  In the centre was a small boy - only Rey saw him, and she was him, simultaneously.  She felt his terror as the darkness seeped towards him, encroaching upon his world until it was only him and that which he could not understand, but feared so profoundly.  That gnarled hand squeezed, and it wrenched, and it tore.   The boy screamed.  Rey screamed.

     Rey was repulsed so deeply by the image that she doubled over in the rain, heaving as waves of nausea hit her over and over.  Her entire body trembled with terror.   "What was that?" she breathed out, as she fell to her hands and knees.  

     "It is what became of me,” Kylo Ren’s tone was so matter-of-fact, as if he’d made peace with terror a long time ago.  Rey shook her head in disbelief.  Why was he showing her this now?  Her mind was whirring, trying to comprehend the many disparate pieces of information she had gleaned from his mind on Starkillers, his depraved acts of violence, and from their bond.  There was so much to navigate and she felt as if she was drowning in uncertainty. 

     "It is Snoke!  And you’re his messenger!”  She yelled accusingly, as she threw herself up into a standing position.  Rey ignited her lightsaber in a heartbeat and lunged at him, only to be met with the familiar thrum of his red saber.  “What have you done to Luke?”

     “I'm not here to fight you.  And I have yet to see your Master,” he growled as he held her at bay.  They moved around each other, sabers sizzling with the pressure they exerted, in a halo of blue, red, and purple against a backdrop of inky darkness.  

     "You lie.  You’re here to take me to Snoke. You do his bidding, you do whatever he wants.  I saw what you are capable of with my own eyes.  And now you want to destroy Luke,” she hissed through gritted teeth, convinced that this is what had her vision had told her.  It was all so jumbled up in her mind now.  

     Kylo Ren suddenly extinguished his saber and knocked hers away with the Force.  He lunged and caught her against him, pinning her arms against her own body.  

     “What are you doing?” she cried out, trying to loosen his vice-like arms with no success.  

     “It seems you like to fight dirty, so be it.  Show me what you think you saw.  Don't force me to take it," he growled against her ear.  She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on finding a way out. Rey raised a foot to stamp down on his instep but Kylo Ren exerted a Force hold against her leg. 

     "Don't do it." He warned.  "I need to know what you have seen." 

     "And why should I trust you?  Or share with you? You’re holding me against my will.  Again.”

     He sighed.  “I just need you to settle down.”  He spoke with contempt, and she could feel him struggling to not lose his patience.  "Search your feelings.  Sense if there is any threat from me at this moment.  Surely your master has at least taught you that - how to judge intention?  You must always be aware as a warrior."  

     "I am not a warrior!” 

     His eyebrow rose. "Then what are you doing?  You attacked me the moment you saw me, and you lunged with your lightsaber?  I offered no threat, and you attacked, _Jedi_.”

     Rey felt the struggle drain out of her and she sagged finally with the effort of fighting against his strong embrace.  Her body fell back against the hard wall of his chest and for a moment they both seemed to take a moment to simply draw a breath, finding a fleeting respite from their conflict .  She heard herself sigh as a thought fluttered past her mind - this evening really couldn't get more bizarre, standing there in the rain while being held by Kylo Ren.  "Alright.  Take whatever it is that you you want."  

     His hand rose as Rey turned slowly towards him, and this time Rey projected the images of what she had seen.  She saw his face twitch when her's did, saw him take a sharp breath when her tears had begun to fall.  The image ended with her bursting from the cave, only again to see him and the confusion that ensued.   They staggered back from each other, each placing hands on their knees to catch their breaths.   They stared at each other for a long time in silence. Rey couldn't decipher his expression as he looked at her with those deep and dark eyes.  

     “You're that frightened of me?" He asked.  She took a deep breath, and looked down at the ground.  When she lifted her eyes, their gazes met and locked.   "I can't explain it but I have you see you now for years, something tormenting my dreams.  Always blackness, always something violent..."  She said defiantly, raising her chin.  She didn't add that sometimes there was...something else.   He looked at her as if he caught her thought, as if she hadn't let her voice trail off.  

     Rey's anger flared again.  She was exhausted from the months of fighting to keep her mind locked away from the presence that threatened to overtake her at any given moment, and of trying to understand how her fate had become linked with him.  He had taken so much from her in such little time, and it was too much, and she felt stuck because she didn't know what she should do to gain her peace.  “I want an end to this.  It’s exhausting, having to fight this all of the damned time,” she spoke through gritted teeth. 

     “Then don’t fight it, scavenger,” he said with surprising calm. 

     She looked at him as if he was insane. “And just let you in?  Let the dark side in?  Then what do you think I am doing here with Master Luke?”  she nearly screamed in frustration. They were going in circles with each other.

     Kylo Ren smirked. “Do you even know what you’re talking about?  Is this what Luke has been filling your head with?  This inane Jedi nonsense about the dark side?”  Kylo was now pacing around talking, almost as if musing to himself.  “Of course, he senses all that anger inside of you.  You are no more in control of it than I was.  Luke must be afraid of you, isn’t he?  He can’t trust you with any real knowledge that might be used against him one day,” he said mockingly.  

     Rey drew her lightsaber to her and ignited it in one fluid movement.  Kylo Ren sighed with obvious annoyance, but drew his own and ignited it.  “Let me see what you have learned in any case.”  He twirled his saber again while they paced around each other.  The rain drove even harder as Rey lunged but Ren's lightsaber clashed with hers in easy response.  “Do you even know what you’ve been doing here all this time with Luke?  You are stronger, I’ll give you that.  But you've _scavenged_ everything you know about the Force from me even though you refused my offer to teach you.  You’re wasting time with Luke.  He’s not teaching you. Not really.  Why is that, I wonder?” he said through gritted teeth.  They continued to parry across the landscape, and Rey’s anger continued to mount at both his taunts, and even more so, as she realised that he wasn’t even exerting himself. 

     Rey's eyes narrowed.  "And you're telling me that you have all of the answers?  You?  The person who murdered your own father and broke your mother's heart, and now, what?  You’re here to do the same for your uncle?”  

     A flash of pain crossed the dark knight's face before his eyes hardened.  He gave an anguished snarl as he began his attack in earnest, relentlessly and furiously striking her blade, until she was once again pushed against the edge of a cliff.  It was clear to her that she could not beat him this time.  Rey's arms trembled with the desperate effort of holding him off as he loomed angrily over her.  

     “This is not what is meant to be, scavenger.  You and I fighting each other until one kills the other.  It's a waste of what we are, and of what we are to become,” he said as their blades clashed above their heads. Rey attempted to rally, but lost her footing instead and fell backwards, toppling off the edge of the cliff.  Only her lightening quick reflexes saved her as she found a handhold at the edge of the jagged outcrop of rock.  

      "There is no _we_ here.  I will never join you.  Never.” she screamed, with a panicked look behind as her mind churned violently in tandem with the waters below.  When she glanced up at her opponent, his face seemed frozen.  A choice crystallised in her mind - either surrender to him or …  Rey relinquished her hold, letting herself fall back against the all-consuming blackness of the sea. 


	13. A Longest Night, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: lots of spoilers contained here for a rumoured potential rescue.

     “Rey!!!” The sound of her name was intermingled with the tumultuous sound of the waters below and the rushing of fierce rains into it.  Rey slowed her descent somehow to lessen the impact of the water, but was still unprepared for the feeling of having her very breath knocked from her body as she struck the choppy surface.  When she rebounded back up from her fall, she began her desperate struggle to stay afloat, gulping huge mouthfuls of water as she cursed herself for having been goaded by Kylo Ren into this predicament.  Unable to swim, she found her arms tiring of her panicked efforts while her head bobbed under the relentless waves, each time for a bit longer.  But then she reached a point when everything inside of her relaxed, and the fight simply flowed out of her like the air in a deflating tire.  Rey’s body drifted gently downwards into the angry sea waters.

      _Rey first became aware of feeling strangely warm and supported as her body floated in a rich substance, something more far more viscous than water.  She opened her eyes slowly and found herself in the deep darkness of the sea as she expected, though she was no longer gasping for air, and she sensed, rather than saw, that she wasn’t alone.  As her vision cleared, she could make out only the outline of a large hulking entity._

      _“Rey of Jakku”_

      _Her body jolted to attention.  “Where are you?  Who are you?  How do you know my name?”_

      _“Why are you here, Rey?”  The voice was loud and booming, as if it originated from everywhere and nowhere at once.  Rey squinted at the shape in front of her.  Her arms moved through the water slowly, and she watched with puzzled interest as they moved through it as if it was syrup rather than seawater._

       _“I dove into the sea," she answered, embarrassed by how weak those words sounded._

      As if the creature had heard her thoughts, the voice came again.   _“That’s not the answer to my question.”_

       _Rey’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.  “I-I’m not sure I understand.”  she said as she peered into the shadows.  If anything, the “thing” was even less visible._

      _“Only because you don’t want to.  You have never wanted to.”_

      _“What?”  she asked.  She again felt, rather than saw, the entity's attention turn from her._

       _When the voice sounded again, it contained a new edge. “Why have you brought_ him?”  

      _Rey was perplexed to see an image of Kylo Ren diving into the ocean only seconds after her fall.  She shook her head, wondering why he would have followed her._

      “ _I-I didn’t.  I didn’t bring him_.”  she stammered.  

       _“You will confront your truths.  Only then will you understand your power.  The time has come, Rey of Jakku.”_   _The voice was fading away.  Rey suddenly felt a rush of water strike her and eject her from strange place she was in with a forceful current.  Blackness took over again._

 

********

     Kylo Ren watched from the cliff above as if time had slowed, sensing terror in the girl and the sinking feeling of being caught in a losing battle.  And then a familiar voice in his head.

     “ _She can’t swim, Ben_.”  

     Ren turned his head to see a robed figure standing in the distance, only apparent when lightening brightened the dark landscape and his former master appeared in silhouette.  The image was striking to say the very least.  But as difficult as it was to not stare, the urgency of the girl’s terror compelled Kylo Ren to dive over the sheer edge and into the icy cold waters below.  In reality, only seconds had passed, but he could not see Rey no matter which direction he looked.  Ren cast out his awareness using the Force, and dove under the crashing waves to her, surprised to find her body bursting with intense energy even as she appeared lifeless.  _She’s having a vision again, he thought._

     Kylo’s body heaved with the exertion of navigating through the water in his heavy layers and the added weight of Rey held securely in his arms.  With the help of the Force, he sent them towards the sandy shore and he trudged out of the waters, carrying Rey, her body limp in his embrace.  As he peered down at her, he could hear his own pulse beating rapidly in his ears.

     “Stupid scavenger,” he said through gritted teeth as he quickly laid her out and began chest compressions to pump the water out of her like his soldier’s training had taught him.  Some water came up but she didn’t rouse - she wasn’t breathing.  His own breathing was ragged from both his immense physical efforts, and the unnerving panic he felt.  Ren reached down to tilt her head back and place his mouth down against her frigid lips, breathing into her.  _No change._   He placed his hands over her chest again, this time willing his energy over to her and conscious of the faintest feeling of intermingling, as if invisible threads strived towards the energy in his hands.   Ren wiped his eyes, surprised to find new moisture had collected there, before he leaned down to press his lips against hers again, breathing warmly into her.  A small sound - a whimper almost - before her eyes fluttered open and she pitched forward, sputtering and coughing up copious amounts of water.    Falling back against the ground, Rey’s hands came up shakily to cover the large, surprisingly warm hand on her face, before returning down to her sides, where they reached down curiously to comb through the coarse and grainy…sand?

     “I never thought I would be so happy to see sand again,”  she murmured as she sputtered the remaining bits of water from her lungs.  In the darkness and her foggy awareness, she thought caught the slightest hint of a smirk, or was it even a small smile, on the face of Kylo Ren.

     “Well your sense of humour is intact.”  he said dryly as he sat back on his haunches.  “Even if your mind is not. You can’t swim?  Of all the stupid, insane things to have done?”  he asked.  

     His haughty words caused her to jolt out of her daze.  “I grew up on Jakku.  Where would I have learned how to swim?” she snapped.  

     His eyebrow rose as he shook his head.  “I am beginning to think you are more trouble than you are worth,”  he said as he looked around at the shore and the towering cliff above.  It became clear rather quickly that there was nowhere to go in the poor light other than into the cold water.  “Thanks to you, we are stuck here until morning.” He rose to touch some branches growing out of the cliffside, he ignited his lightsaber, and then proceeded to make quick work of hacking the damp wood into small pieces.  

     Rey watched his movements framed by the glowing red haze of that lightsaber, sensing that he was in the midst of a tantrum.  It caused her to shiver in her sopping wet things.  The temperamental Jedi then floated the wood over into a neat pile, and cast his lightsaber towards it so it would ignite.  He then threw himself dejectedly down onto the pebbly sand, removing his boots and shaking the water out of them, letting out the most impressive string of curses she had ever heard.  Her eyebrow rose.  

     “Take off your wet things and lay them out.  They will dry much more quickly,” he commanded.  From his tone, it was clear he was used to having people follow his orders.  

     “Pardon me?”  Rey asked indignantly.  She was supposed to strip down in front of a dark lord of the Sith?

     “I am not a Sith.  They don't exist anymore.  You should have learned that, at least, by now.” he said simply, apparently having heard her words as clearly as if she had spoken them.  “And as for the clothes, suit yourself,”  he said, laying down onto the sand, turning away from her.  “I am exhausted by your antics tonight, and am in no mood to argue.  And please do try to keep your thoughts to yourself.  I have enough on my mind.”  

     Rey pursed her lips - his arrogance was infuriating!

     “I can feel your rage, scavenger,” he said matter of factly.  Rey’s eyes cast upon one of the longer shoreline stones, tempted, as she was, to fling it at him.  

     “Go ahead and do it, Jedi.  You make a horrible one one, by the way,” he taunted.  “So terrible, in fact, that you remind me of myself.” 

     Rey opened her mouth to formulate a cutting reply, but then fell back against the sand, feeling the fight drain out her.  Deep down she knew she was no Jedi - at least not what she had learned about them through the books Luke had asked her to study.  _Luke_ , _she thought suddenly._   After all the bewildering events of the evening, she had completely forgotten about him. 

     “He knows you’re safe here with me.”  

     Rey snorted as she glanced in the direction of the man who lay a few feet away from her, and pondered the utter absurdity of that statement and this entire predicament.  But she was also thoroughly exhausted and very, very cold despite of the warmth emanating from the small fire Ren had made. It was only then she that she noticed that the rains had stopped and the sky had cleared up.  _Thank the maker for small blessings_ , _she thought_.  

     Practicality had always been Rey’s foremost teacher, and so she stripped off her vest, soggy boots and trousers, and pulled her long undershirt as far down as it could go.  She huddled closer to the fire, willing her hands to warm up.  She looked over at Kylo Ren’s now reclined form jealously, wishing she had at least some of that ridiculous amount of clothing he wore.  It seemed to be drying so much faster than her own things were.  She looked at it curiously, thinking that it must have been incredibly heavy in the water and acknowledged that it must have been exhausting to carry her through the water in that ensemble, and this after their intense duel.  As a small amount of warmth returned, she lay down huddled into a small ball and finally succumbed to sleep.  Her last muddled thoughts went to how she would even begin making sense of this longest of nights.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I just had to include the joke about sand. And yes, it's a shameless nod to the prequels.
> 
> Many thanks for all of the kudos and comments, by the way! They really are such a treat, and an incredible source of encouragement, especially as we have the morning after to look forward to now. ;-)))


	14. The morning after the night before

     Rey gradually became aware of drifting in that place she often travelled to.   She sighed softly.  It was peaceful, it was warm, it was safe.  There was a vague awareness of another presence there too, but she was just so content that she allowed herself to luxuriate in the moment.  She didn't want to reach out to understand who was there with her - she simply let herself be.  

     But the feeling was entirely too short-lived, and Rey was being drawn away from it by a feeling of intense nervousness and trepidation.  Her mind began registering that the sky was brightening and the gentle caress she felt was the ocean’s morning breeze - in other words, it was time to wake up.  _Where am I?_   Her mind was so oddly muddled after such a peaceful and dreamless sleep.  Another strange sensation overcame her - the feeling that while she was cushioned on a soft bed of grainy sand, her head was nestled on something warm and firm.  A small sound escaped her throat as her hand reached out tentatively and felt what was beneath her.  Rey was surprised to find a warm and broad chest covered in a luxurious fabric unlike any she had ever owned.  The chest rose and fell regularly, and the sound of a heart beating steadily filled her ears.  Her mind struggled to make sense of it all.  She didn’t want to wake up… _no not yet_.  _No_ , _this wasn’t unpleasant._ But somewhere in her groggy state, Rey also realised that her leg was entangled with the same big mass.  

     Rey’s eyes flew open and she sat up suddenly, causing some fabric to fall away from her.  She grasped for it and realised it’s texture was similar to what she had felt beneath her.  Her vision cleared as she she looked around wildly.  Rey gasped and scuttled away in horror.  Had she been completely intertwined with Kylo Ren of all people? 

     His eyebrow rose as he watched her with a wicked gleam in his eye.  He propped himself up on one elbow, running his free hand through his tousled hair.  “The Jedi who slept with Kylo Ren.” he said, barely containing a gleeful grin on his scarred face, his already deep voice still thick with sleep. 

     Rey’s mouth gaped open as she stood quickly, only to see his gaze flick down over her barely clad form.  She looked down to find herself very exposed, wearing only the thin undershirt which fell to mid thigh. “I - I certainly did not sleep with you…I just -“

     “Slept with me?” he supplied dryly.  Rey’s hands caught in her dishevelled hair which had fallen from two of her usual three knots, as she tried to understand what had taken place that night.  

     “What - what happened?”  she asked, searching her memory.  Rey had slept so deeply that she had no recollection of anything after she had laid down beside the fire. Just the vaguest memory of seeking out warmth - that same warmth that always beckoned her.   

     He sat up now, brushing off his robes.  He was of course, infuriatingly all-covered up, making her feel even more exposed by comparison.  

     “It’s little wonder you can move wearing all those…things,”  she hissed at him.

     He shrugged, holding up his cowl that she had apparently used as a blanket and brushed it off distastefully.  “It seems to have kept you from freezing to death last night, so I don’t see why my wardrobe should trouble you?” 

     Rey hastily grabbed her now dry things, yanking her trousers up over her legs.  “How did…that happen?” she asked, the disgust evident in her voice.  

      “I woke up and saw the fire was gone and you were shivering with the cold, so I put my cowl over you.  But when I came close you pulled yourself against me,” he stated matter of factly as he stood.  

      Rey looked at him suspiciously.   _She_   _had pulled him towards her?_   But she detected no dishonesty in his words, even though she shook her head in disbelief.  “I must have been very, very cold,” she muttered  as she finished putting on her clothing.  In the space of one night, things had gone from bad to very much worse.  “We need to find Luke,” she said in an as business-like tone as she could muster.  Again that feeling of nervous anxiety assailed her, nearly causing her to double over.  Her eyebrows furrowed together as she realised it wasn’t what she herself was feeling…. She looked at Ren sharply and groaned - things were indeed _far worse_ than she imagined.  The closer he was, the more of his emotions she felt. 

     “I see.  So you do have a conscience after all?  You’re afraid of what Luke will say to you after all you’ve done? Or perhaps he will kill you on the spot?” she asked, finally feeling as if she had some upper ground after the debacle that was this morning.  

      His jaw set and his nostrils flared.  “I can always transmit images of your scantily clad self wrapped around a dark sider this morning if you’d like.   I’m sure _your Master_ will be thoroughly impressed with his Padawan,” he hissed at her. They stood glaring into each others’ faces, both with hands on hips.  

      “You are completely delusional.  And is this what a Dark Lord usually does anyways?   He rescues his enemy from the water and makes sure she’s snuggled up all warm to pass a cold night?” she asked icily.  “That doesn’t seem so _Darth Vader_ to me.”

     Ren’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he opened his mouth to speak. 

       _“Enough bickering, you two,”_   was Luke’s sudden reprimand, sweeping through their tension like a swift ocean breeze. _“Get up here as quickly as possible.”_   Both of their faces turned upwards of the sheer cliff, to find him standing there at the top, peering down at them.  _“I’ll see you at the huts.”_ He had spoken to the both of them through their bond before departing.   They exchanged chagrined looks, like two naughty children caught misbehaving.

      Rey examined the cliffside quickly and set off towards it without a word.  For her it posed no problem, as she tested the various rocks and sticks jutting from it.  She moved quickly and efficiently, and was nearly halfway up it as Kylo Ren stood with his hands on his hips watching her.  He shook his head and followed reluctantly.  Rey only struggled near the top where the overhang was so great that she would need to scale near horizontal to its underside.  It was precarious, to say the least, and she examined her options trying to determine the best route.  In the meantime, Ren had caught up to her, seemingly irritated by the effort it had taken to bring his far greater bulk up the side of the cliff.  She looked back towards him and saw his face furrowed in concentration, dripping with sweat and his hair matted to the sides of his face.  She could see the cords of his neck tensed as he held onto the the stony grips he found.  Ignoring her, Ren set his sights on the top of the cliff and then vaulted to the top with a power that was well beyond human.  He landed swiftly on his feet and then turned with an arrogant glance down towards Rey.

      “Use the Force, scavenger.  Do you want me to show you?”  he asked in a self-satisfied tone.  She shook her head and looked away.  But to her chagrin, there was no other option.  She gave him a reluctant glance, and she was certain he had heard the debate in her mind.  

     “What if I fail?” she asked, looking down behind her.  They were surely fifty metres off of the ground.  

      “You won’t.” 

       Rey shuddered as she looked down again, tiring of holding onto the small grips with all of her might.  Her hands were already raw and burned with her efforts thus far.  “Fine.  Tell me what I should do,”  she said, her arms trembling at this point.  

      “Look to where you want to go.  Let the Force flow through you and direct it to lift you, just as you saw me do.”

       _It sounded deceptively simple,_ she thought.  Rey closed her eyes and opened up her awareness as Luke had taught her to do.  She felt the thrum of energy around her, and in her consciousness, touched upon Kylo Ren’s as well.  She willed the energy around her to cascade upwards in a wave, buoying her and asked for it to spring her upwards towards him.  She was surprised to find herself suddenly launched through the air, her aim perhaps a little too precisely set to the image she had formed in her mind.  Catching him off-guard, she flew right into the dark knight, knocking him back to the ground.  

      “Very funny!” he snarled as they again struggled to disentangle themselves from each other.  

      Rey quickly shuffled off of him, finding the repeated contact with him strangely disconcerting.  The feeling was reminiscent of something, but she wouldn’t think about it now.  “I didn’t mean to do that.” she said.  “At least, I don’t think I did,” she said honestly. 

      Kylo Ren brushed his hand against lip to find it bloodied from their little skirmish.  “I don’t suppose you did,” he finally said.  Then plucking a dried piece of grass from her shoulder, he considered her for a moment.  “You did well, Padawan.  But you rely far too much on the physical world.  The Force must become your first nature.  Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time,”  he finally said before turning to look up along the landscape towards the huts and to Luke’s retreating figure.  The words were almost a compliment, accept for the disdain that crept in with the word padawan.

     “And you sound exactly like Luke, you know,” Rey taunted.  If he heard her words, he didn’t acknowledge them as he continued to watch his former Master from a distance.  “He still cares about you.” Rey said, following Kylo Ren’s gaze.  

     His head snapped back to towards her, eyes narrowing.  “Sentiments like those mean nothing to me, and you’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise,” he spoke coldly, before turning and taking his long, loping strides towards the inevitable.  Rey fell into step a bit behind, hiding a small smile.  She knew the brave front was a mask just like that abominable thing he usually wore.  Her stomach, wrenching and tearing with nervousness, told her the truth behind Kylo Ren’s words.  

     Luke turned towards them as they approached and he and his former apprentice stared at each other for several long moments.  The Old Jedi retained his composure though Rey could see a deep sadness etched into the lines of his face.  

     “What, can you not get razors to this island?”  Kylo Ren asked, looking at his master in obvious dismay. Rey sensed him trying to reconcile his memory of Luke with what stood before him now.  

     “What are you doing here, Ben?”  Luke finally asked.  

       Kylo Ren swallowed heavily, looking away for a moment.  “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”   

      “Has Snoke sent you?”

      Kylo Ren gave a small incline of his head.  “He doesn't know where you are, if that’s what you want to know.   But since you so kindly sent me an invitation -“

      Rey caught her breath and looked at Luke with obvious surprise, though Luke’s gaze remained fixed on his nephew. 

      “I see.  So what is your plan then?  To capture Rey, to bring her before him?  To create a partner in the destruction and terror that your …so-called Order wreaks upon the galaxy?”  asked Luke in a low voice.

      Rey felt the ire in the man standing next to her.  “That’s what you would think, isn’t it?” was his flat response.  He took a deep breath,  “The girl has great potential.  It would be a pity for it to go to waste.  Snoke doesn’t like waste, nor do I.  There are so few of us left.”  

      “And yet until now you’ve deliberately destroyed every living Jedi and your master would lay me to waste in an instant?”  Luke demanded.

      “If I intended to kill you, I would have done so already,” said Kylo Ren.  

      A faint grin crossed the Old Jedi’s features.  “Would you now?  I invite you to try.  Nice dress there, by the way.”  The words were spoken with the deadliest calm.

       Kylo Ren paused a moment, watching his former master with uncertainty.  The man who stood before him was certainly different than what he remembered.  

      “You and Snoke will never win, Ben.  The Force will always correct itself, whether I am alive to see it or not.  It will put an end to the unnatural way you and Snoke move with it, attempting to bend what has its own will to your own motives for power and domination.”  

      “The same can be said for the Resistance and the ways of the Jedi.  You certainly have no monopoly on right action,”  Kylo Ren said in accusing tones.  

      Luke stroked his beard thoughtfully as he contemplated his fallen Padawan.  “Tell me Ben, what would the First Order do with you if they stood in my place?  Guilty of the murder…of the General’s - your mother’s husband?  The destruction of an entire planetary system and the blood of many innocent lives on your hands?  What would the First Order do with the likes of you?”

      Kylo Ren glared at him defiantly, “We would make an example of me, of what the consequences are of defying the ultimate power in the galaxy.  It is necessary that all understand those consequences.”  Rey looked between Luke and Kylo Ren as they continued to stare each other down.  She could feel Kylo Ren’s anger and fury swirling just below the surface of his seemingly calm surface.  Luke was unfathomable, but then she had only ever been able to touch upon the surface of his mind.  

      “Indeed,” said Luke finally as he turned to look out over the sloping land behind them.  

      “But that is why the Resistance are weak and _will always lose_.  They do not know how to exert power, to exert control.  That is why whatever they touch falls to ruin and disorder as soon as they establish it.  They cannot sustain peace, they cannot taste victory long enough for the celebratory speech to even fall from their lips,”  Kylo Ren hissed.  Rey could feel his frustration mounting as Luke refused to take his bait, and she suddenly recalled her own actions the previous night as she tried to provoke Kylo Ren into fighting with her.  As if he had caught her thoughts, Kylo Ren shot her a sly glance.

      “And that is why you will also fail with her,” he spoke, motioning over at Rey.  “She has so much anger, rage…hatred even.   I feel it in her at every moment, following her like a shadow.  And you, with your weak Jedi ways, will not impose the necessary structures and support, take command of her as you should to see her defeat those demons.  She will fall, and be lost to you, as I did,” he said in low and dangerous tones.  “Snoke has seen this, and you would do well to not underestimate his wisdom.”

      “Enough!” Luke yelled, turning a now thunderous face to his nephew.  “Do you not think I know of Snoke’s methods?  That you are nothing but a broken and battered man, scarred beyond belief by the _wisdom_ of his teachings?”  Kylo looked at him in shock and Luke nodded, stepping closer and pacing around him,  “Oh yes, of course I know.  I know what you have submitted yourself to.  Of the pain and the torture, giving yourself over to hatred and anger to strengthen your pathetic training.  You are caught up in some adolescent idolatry of a figure who projects power on the shaky foundations of terror.  His power rests in the fear he commands and nothing else.  And you are weakened as a result, just a tool at the end of an ever shortening leash.  Don’t you think you should be more accomplished and powerful than you are now, after six long years of Snoke’s training?   You, with all of that unparalleled potential?  And the sad thing is, he will _cut_ the leash and _cut you down_ when he needs you no longer.  The only thing infinite in Snoke is his thirst for power.  You are a fool if you don’t realise that should he latch unto Rey, he will get rid of you in an instant.  That is the waste in this situation, that you will have willingly given him _the motive_ and _the means_ to destroy you, ”  Luke said in open disgust.   

     Kylo Ren growled as he unleashed his lightsaber and begin slashing it in every direction, destroying the small garden enclosure into a pile of smouldering embers.  It seemed his fury had no end, and that he would destroy any and every structure around him.   Rey watched helplessly as he savaged the garden and was about to launch herself on him, when it stopped all of a sudden.  His lightsaber was thrown from his hands, and Kylo Ren was unceremoniously lifted and tossed back forcefully against the first hut’s walls.  With a wave of Luke’s hand, bindings rose from the ground and closed around Ren’s wrists and though he struggled, the former padawan saw there was no way that he could release them.  Luke stepped forward, pushing his nephew back into the hut with a forceful nudge to the chest with his robotic hand.  

     “Given what I could do to you, or rather what I should do, this will have to do for now.  I will leave you to contemplate how you will repair the damage you have done to my home using just your bare hands.”  Luke said, tearing his nephews’ gloves from him.  He threw them carelessly away, before tearing his tunic and belt away, checking for trackers. Kylo Ren remained clad only in a black t-shirt and trousers.  The exposed flesh revealed what Luke had said as he looked pointedly at the network of old and new scars crisscrossing his body.  

      “And that's only what we can see on this physical flesh of yours.  I fear for what abuses he has inflicted upon your mind.”  Luke said, tossing his nephews’ things carelessly aside.  He walked out of the hut.  

     Rey stood for a few moments watching Kylo Ren struggle with the binders, his temper still simmering, and looking clearly confounded that he could not break free.   For an instant, she thought she witnessed an almost defeatedness in his usually proud posture.  His head shot up suddenly and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

      “What?”  he snarled through a curled lip.  Rey jumped at the force of his anger, but diverted her eyes quickly and walked away.  

 


	15. Interlude, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks as always, for all the views, kudos, and comments. Hours of writing and editing go into each and every chapter, so let's up that kudos and comment count! Your feedback - positive or negative - are a source of inspiration, and they help power this fic through the inevitable cases of writer's block! 
> 
> In the meantime, our three Jedi have to figure out a way of co-existing on an island that seems entirely too small for the amount of angst between them. When you've got two Skywalkers in one place, drama is sure to follow. :-))

     A few days passed as Kylo Ren struggled in his captivity inside of the hut.  The small domed structure adjacent to the garden was outfitted with a most basic bed roll, one pillow, a diminutive table and chair, a small stack of books in a script that Rey could not decipher, and not much else. It was almost a mirror image of her own quarters, though the space looked laughably quaint for such a large and feral man.  Luke brought his nephew all of his meals and sighed with annoyance as his nephew hurled items out of the windows using the Force. 

     The Jedi Master had otherwise again retreated into himself for the most part, his brow often furrowed in deep thought.  Rey watched him a lot, missing that increasing ease she had come to know with him.  She did not have to read his mind to know that he was struggling with something.  They continued to train, grateful that Luke had chosen to focus upon mental defence because that “other” awareness always followed her like a shadow.  She also had so much to ask of him - to understand everything that had happened the night when Kylo Ren had arrived, but she hesitated to make any further demands on her master as he was so obviously occupied already.  She cursed the Jedi’s nephew for having come to disrupt everything.  Her mind struggled to accept Ren’s words about his invitation from the Jedi Master.  It was now painfully obvious to her that Luke had indeed prepared the first hut for his nephew’s arrival and capture.  But why had he “invited” him in the first place?  The question rested painfully between her brows, like a knotted tension as she chided herself for perceiving Luke's action as some kind of a small betrayal.  

     Rey glanced back through the window and saw the son of Han and Leia sitting cross-legged in meditation.  He had said very little during those days, and she and he had not even exchanged a single word.  Not that words were really necessary between them.  Both of them was always aware of the other to a lesser or greater extent, as if a second set of eyes were viewing their respective outlooks.  Rey sighed as she turned her attention back towards the garden, and away from the man who managed to look more peaceful in his meditation than she had ever seen him.  It was such a contrast to the savaged garden surrounding her.  She reached out to stroke a damaged plant, feeling her anger simmer as she remembered the way Kylo Ren had lashed out with his lightsaber.  Luke said that he would permit her to recover the plants as much as possible, but not to begin repairs to the garden enclosure itself - that job would rest with his nephew.  Rey supposed that meant that Luke would release Ren from his binders at some point, but she couldn’t see how it would be possible to allow that unstable personality freedom of movement around the island.

     The young Padawan sat herself amongst the plants and took her favoured pose.  Luke had instructed her to do an extended meditation today and so she let herself flow into the energy around her.  The plants lit up around her as they usually did, though it struck her how many struggled to glow, and how in some, the light simply flickered out.  She made a mental note of which she could salvage and which she would pull from the soil to make way for new ones.  Luke had mentioned that she could find some young plants from around the island to replace those too damaged to recover.  She turned her attention back to the living ones - those that still glowed and called to her and she felt herself instinctively willing extra energy over to them, as if sharing of herself to ensure they would survive.  For a moment she thought she saw them flare more brightly, before she perceived another much greater flare of energy.  The hair on the back of her neck stood and she felt herself turning towards the something else.  

     “So that’s what it is,”  she heard the pensive words but wasn’t sure if they were spoken aloud or not.  Her eyes fluttered open to see Kylo Ren leaning against the the window frame, deep brown eyes scanning between her and the garden intently.  Her eyes followed his, assessing the plants with her newfound insight.  The reality was harsh - more than half were truly destroyed.  Rey’s eyes narrowed as she turned back to glare at the man who had destroyed so much. 

     “Why?” she asked, her voice quivering with sadness and anger.  His eyes hardened as he understood the vastness of her question, but not before a range of emotions flickered past that extraordinarily expressive face. 

     “Ask yourself the same question, sweetheart,” although he had used a term of endearment, his tone spoke nothing of affection.  “The evidence of what you are capable of is right here,”  he drawled slowly, tracing a long finger across the line that marred his still young face.

     Rey’s eyes cast downwards to the ground, her fingertips tingling as if she were feeling the edges of the scar.  _It wasn’t the Jedi way,_ she thought to herself.  Kylo Ren’s eyebrow quirked before a self-satisfied smirk came across his face.  He threw himself back to the floor of his hut and turned away from her.  They were done talking for that day.

**********

     By the fourth day, Luke had decided to approach his nephew again.   He strode into the hut and stopped abruptly in front of Kylo Ren, who had been standing while reading a book.  Rey had followed behind a few steps, surprised to see her master edged by a slight darkness.  She was transfixed as Kylo Ren backed slightly away, as if recognising that same energy in the Jedi, and uncertain of what his former master intended.   Luke drew Kylo’s lightsaber from his robes and ignited it, its hiss and crackle eerily amplified within the curved and bare confines of the stone-hewn room.  

     Rey drew in her breath sharply - Luke’s intention were unfathomable to her but she had felt a spike of fear within Kylo Ren.  Luke examined the blade slowly, moving its’ tip near to his nephew’s neck.     His eyebrow quirked a moment as he looked between Kylo Ren’s seemingly stoic expression and the hissing and buzzing mess in his hand.  

     “It’s awfully big, wouldn’t you say?” he drew out slowly, tilting his head as he considered his nephew.  Rey would have snickered in any other circumstance, though as apprehension and fear ricocheted between herself and Ren, she could not.  The air in the small hut vibrated with tension.

     “If you wish to kill me, why don’t you just get on with it?”  Kylo Ren snarled, his eyes shining defiantly while reflecting the red light of his saber.  He could not stifle a small grimace however, at the heat emanated against his pale skin.

     Luke sighed as he held the blade steadily beside Ren’s neck.  “It’s a tempting thought, isn’t it?  I mean...it could be so easy...and deserved, don’t you think?  After everything you’ve done, _Kylo Ren_?   Who would miss you?  The First Order?  General Hux sees you as an unfortunate means to an end, but would be unbothered if you disappeared.  For Snoke - _your Master_ \- it would be a setback for certain, as who would he would draw from to pervert the will of the Force?  Then again, he would just redouble his efforts to find Rey and I…”  Luke paused as he tilted his head to the other side as if considering another viewpoint, rubbing his beard with his robotic hand.  With a deep exhalation, “But then I would have to face your mother, the one person who has never given up hope for you.  And so here I am in this _situation_.”  

     Rey’s eyebrow rose as she watched the two men staring at each other, feeling as if she was intruding on some deeply personal confrontation.   

     Kylo Ren snorted. “How pragmatic of you.”

      Luke’s eyes narrowed as he leaned toward his nephew.  “Don't you doubt that I know plenty about the dark side, my dear young one.  How it can seize you in an instant - in a moment of rage, or in despair, or in fear.  I know all about it and the immense power it confers.  _I nearly killed Darth Vader just like that,_ ”  Luke’s tone had a deadly calm quality about it even while the lightsaber slipped ever so closer to Kylo Ren’s neck.  “But then there are momentary slips, and then there is _dedicating your path to it_.  Two different things, no?  How many have you threatened like this, I wonder?  Forced them to fear for their lives?  It’s not a nice feeling is it, Ben?”  

     Kylo Ren swallowed heavily, now uncharacteristically subdued in the face of Luke’s words.  Rey could not move as she watched her master with widened eyes - a man who was nearly unrecognisable in this light.

     The Jedi shook his head as if breaking a spell, before casting his eyes over the crackling saber and its haphazardly repaired handle again for a few long moments.  Finally, he powered it down, tucking it back into his robe.  Rey saw the almost imperceptible breath of relief from Kylo Ren.  Luke stepped away but turned to look back at Kylo Ren.  

     “So I will ask you this again - why are you here, Ben?”  Luke asked.  Kylo Ren’s eyes cast down to the floor and Luke pursed his lips, nodding. 

      “The first time I ever saw a lightsaber, it was because your namesake, Obi Wan Kenobi - Ben Kenobi - showed Anakin’s to me.  He told me that a lightsaber was the elegant weapon of the Jedi, and of force users.  This…thing.”  he said, patting the saber in his pocket, “Decidedly not elegant,”  as he left the hut. 

      Rey let out a deep breath that she hadn’t even realised she was holding before setting off after her master.  “Luke?”

     He was standing at the edge of the cliff, peering down at something that he was always looking at, though Rey followed his glance and could not understand what he saw there on the promontory overlooking the sea.  But she did know Luke well enough now to know that he was troubled - angered - even.  

     “Is everything alright?”  she asked quietly.  

     The Jedi master’s face softened as he looked at the uncertain young girl.  “Are you concerned?”  he asked.  

     “It just seems that keeping him here is more trouble than its worth.  He makes you upset, and you know how I feel about him.  Couldn't we just send him away?” 

     The corners of Luke's mouth turned up slightly as his piercing blue eyes gazed out over the ocean.  “He is staying Rey, because he is called to.  As each of us are called to be here now, as hard it is for each of us, and despite all of the reasons each of us may have to not want to be here together.”   His face hardened a bit as he nodded up to the hut where his nephew was imprisoned.  “This is just a…cleansing period,”  he finally spoke again.  

     Rey's eyes widened with disbelief.  “A cleansing period for Kylo Ren?  He’ll need to live out his days here as an old man, at that rate?”  she asked as a shiver passed through her. The idea of it almost made her laugh.  Almost.

     Luke sighed as he looked down at that cliff again.  “For both of us, Rey.  For all of us.”  


	16. Interlude, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long break. Life has had a way of getting very busy as of late and will probably do so again for the next while, though I will do as best as I can to get this fic wrapped up. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter for your slow burn fix of Kylo and Rey. It's a bit of a filler, but moves them along a little nonetheless. :-)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much has gone on in the fandom since my last chapter! I know that those of us looking for signs of a Kylo Ren and Rey romance in TLJ experienced some setbacks during the last few months, but I am remaining cautiously optimistic. Rian Johnson is a great storyteller and despite the foundations that were laid in TFA for what could be the most epic romance ever, there is an enormous amount of story-telling that has to happen so that movie-goers will accept it is a possibility. We know TLJ begins at the moment TFA finished, and maybe there is a time jump later on in the film that could help fill in some of that much needed time, but the point is...it needs time, and possibly even another episode with yet another time jump to become reality.
> 
> This fic is also a slow burn for a reason. I remember clearly coming out of TFA in December 2015, saying "Wow, that Kylo Ren guy is super intense, especially whenever Rey is around." A member of the group I went with said "I've got it all figured out. It's so obvious that Rey is Luke's daughter." I remember looking at her in horror because the thought had not even crossed my mind for an instant, and I was thoroughly disturbed. Could it be? No, I shook my head. Kylo's behaviour was just too weird in that case, even for Star Wars, and surely they learned their lesson after the Luke/Leia kiss in ESB. I didn't say anything at the time, but as I rewatched the film months later, I became certain that my first instinct was right. There was no way that Rey could be related to Kylo, and what's more, I noticed more things that suggested their story together was really the foundation of the trilogy. I started poking around on the Internet and found all sorts of insightful and talented discourse and art by the Reylo community and so the idea for this story formed. 
> 
> So back to the slow burn. I knew it would be that from the outset, because I couldn't see it any other way. Kylo Ren has a lot to make up for if he is to be redeemed and to me, it was clear with the rebirth of the sun at the end of TFA, that he will be. But what I didn't know is that it would take this long. I can really understand Rian Johnson's words when he said that they wanted a central romance but it just wasn't happening as yet (to paraphrase). When writing, the characters take on a life of their own and will give you pause when they do or say something that just doesn't fit. I imagine that this is what happened when TLJ was being written, given all the different plot threads that were running simultaneously and all of the questions that needed to be answered from TFA. So much has to happen in two and half hours to weave the story together in a coherent and satisfying manner. So in my very long-winded way, what I am trying to say is don't despair! The signs were all there, the possibilities are still there, and Kylo Ren and Rey's relationship is still the central story to be told. It just needs time to unfold, and I am looking forward to how it will all play out. And until then, there is what I affectionately call my "rom-com (romantic comedy)" version of it." ;-)

     The stones rose - a multitude of them -  and shuddered in the air before dropping back to the ground.  

     “That’s okay, Rey.  Relax.  Breathe.  Understand the space between each stone and the world around it.  Just breathe.”  Luke said as he watched the young learner, framed by late afternoon sky and the waters below, from his higher position on the slope.  Rey nodded and closed her eyes, attempting to return to her breath.  Only the slightest slump in her shoulders gave away her exhaustion, otherwise her posture remained determined and proud.

     Her hand rose, motioning at the stones as if lifting them up.  At first nothing happened, and then all at once, the stones flew wildly up into the air…up, up, up…before casting themselves out and over the edge of the promontory into the sea in a raucous showering.  

     Rey’s eyes flew open and Luke turned suddenly to glance up the slope towards the huts.  The Jedi’s hands went to his hips as his expression became stern.

     “What happened?” 

      Kylo Ren heard the bewildered scavenger’s words as he leaned against the window, observing.  He could not suppress his gleeful grin.  As soon as the young learner had opened herself up to the Force, their connection had flowed anew, and he took his opportunity to see what was possible with it.  What he discovered confirmed what he had suspected from the incident in the previous weeks where he had “demonstrated” how to raise a stone -  that the scavenger could adapt his knowledge so quickly that she didn’t even realise she was doing it.  It was fascinating.  Ren was disturbed from his thoughts as he overheard Luke say a few words to the scavenger, which caused them them to move out of his limited sightline.  

     “Old fool,” muttered Ren.  He may not be able to see them any longer, but as soon as the girl opened herself up the Force, he would be waiting. Ren now ran his hand through his hair, grimacing at how unkept it felt.  It almost didn’t feel like his own hair anymore as he had never remained so ungroomed and unwashed for so long.  In the First Order, all staff had to be impeccably presented, right down to the shine on their shoes or their armour.  Not that grooming seemed to be high on his uncle's list of priorities, given his own well-worn appearance.  The old Jedi no longer looked the part of the dashing young war hero that was the much-admired Luke Skywalker, thought Kylo bitterly.  But then again, Ren himself knew how guilt rotted away at everything from the inside out - until only a shell of the previous person remained.  He knew it only too well.  

 

*********

 

     A few days later, Luke decided that they would begin sharing meals with his nephew.  Although Rey had protested - trying always to avoid Kylo Ren as much as possible, Luke insisted that his nephew had calmed himself to a certain extent.  Rey couldn't argue with him - she had felt as much in the brief moments she tapped into her their connection, and recognised that the tranquility of Ahch-To had perhaps seeped into the monster’s essence.  

     “So I am curious to know, Ben.  What do you know of your connection to Rey?”  Luke asked in a measured tone as he handed his nephew a bowl of vegetable stew and freshly baked loaves.  

     Kylo Ren accepted the food quietly and leaned back against the wall, contemplating the both of them.  

     “It is one of the reasons I came here.  I wanted to understand what this was, and what is possible with it.  It’s fascinating.  I have never seen anything like it.” he said, his tone sounding surprisingly quite reasonable.  

      Rey choked on her bread.  “That’s one way of putting it.”  

      Kylo Ren tilted his head to look at her.  “She is scared of it.  It is not interesting to her, and she expends a great deal of her energy fighting it.  Whatever this is, it could lend her strength, as it has in the past, if she embraced it, but instead she is weakened.” he said, turning back towards Luke.  

     Luke looked between the both of them and shook his head.  “For good reason, Ben.”  

     A flare of temper again.  “Why do you insist on using that name?  I have not gone by that name in many years.  Ben is dead.  Gone,”  he said emphatically. 

     “So Kylo Ren dove in to save Rey without  a thought to his own life?  Did the man you call Kylo Ren visit his father’s funeral and supply his mother with useful information about the First Order’s tactics?”  Luke asked, his usually serious eyes showing the faintest glimmer of humour.  Kylo Ren’s dark eyebrow’s rose as he contemplated Luke coolly, and all the while Rey turned to look at her nemesis in surprise.  She hadn’t noticed how tired he looked - like a man who hadn’t slept in years.

     “I told you that I don’t like waste.  It would have been a waste for her to die just because she jumped into the ocean like an idiot, not knowing how to swim,”  were his cool words.  Rey gasped at his harsh assessment of her.  His gaze settled upon her again.

     “What?  I have said no different to you.  You know that is what I think,” he said.  “And as for the other thing - so you think you’ve perceived an action, but who knows the motivation behind it?”  

 

*********

 

     The next day they sat together quietly at first.  Luke looked between the two of them as if working something out in his mind.

     “We need to know the extent of this connection.” he mused, as if thinking out loud.  “Master Yoda has never seen the likes of it in all of his years.”  

     Kylo Ren snorted.  “So now you’re talking to dead little green men?” were his mocking words.  

     Luke’e expression became troubled as it settled upon his nephew.  “There is no need to eschew experience just because you haven’t had them…yet.  The Force is much more than you know,”  Luke said as he answered with surprising patience.  Rey felt a burst of Force energy within her master, as if to confirm the truth of his words.  

     Ren turned his eyes towards Rey.  “And I suppose you are communing with imaginary beings now, too?” he asked.  “Or perhaps you are not deemed worthy enough of an appearance, scavenger?”  he hissed.  

     “I have a name, you know.”

     “Oh yes, I forgot... _Rey_.  Three whole letters of your own.”

     Rey’s anger flared as he referenced her lowly beginnings and lack of a family name.   She cast her hand out and force pushed Kylo Ren against the wall, holding him there with the power of her anger.  Her hazel eyes were feral, shooting daggers of hatred. 

     “In addition to being a monster of a person, you are also the most incredibly arrogant snob I have ever met.   High pedigree hasn’t apparently brought you any humanity, has it?  What good does an honourable name do, _Ben Solo_ , when you murder your own line?”  she spit out.  

     Ren’s temper erupted and he surged towards her, breaking through her force hold with his superior training.  He came forward until only the chains stopped him.  The hut shook under the exchange of power.    Luke stood abruptly, moving between the two of them.  He cast his nephew back with a simple flick of his hand. 

     Ren shot Luke a pointed look.  “Such nice words from a so-called Jedi?  You’ve got a real winner here, don’t you?”  he said with feigned sweetness.  Rey’s hazel eyes flashed with anger as she now looked to a wooden chopping board nearby, tempting as it was to hurl it at him as hard as she could.  Ren nodded his head, his eyes flashing with a knowing look.  

     “Oh yes, feel the dark side, _Rey_. It’s right there, so close to the surface,”  he taunted.  

     “Enough.  Stop this now,” Luke said.  “Both of you, stop it now.  This house has been here for millennia and I will not allow the two of you to destroy it with your hostilities.  Rey, you will come with me right now.  Leave Ben to simmer down.”  

 

*********

 

     Rey was forced to bring Kylo Ren’s meals the next few days.  Although Luke had been surprisingly understanding in his reprimand of her angry Force outburst, she suspected the meal duty was his way of making her do penance for her words the other day.  She approached his former apprentice warily, laying the tray down in front of him.  It was all Ren's fault.  All of it.  He had disturbed her peace and her training on Ahch-to - first from afar and now in person.  As her eyes settled on his large frame, so stiff and uncomfortable from being curtailed from any meaningful movement, she struggled to push away the part of her that was simply human,  that wanted to feel the briefest tug of compassion.  She had seen him curled up on smallish pad on the floor when he slept, as if straining to keep himself on it.  

     “I don’t want your pity.  Leave me,” he said.  She gritted her teeth, her heart hardening again.  

     The next day, she stood at the door for a moment before leaving.  

      “What?” he barked.  

     “I - I just wanted to say thank you,”  Rey finally said in a small voice.  It had weighed on her that she hadn’t acknowledged his help the first night when he rescued her from the sea.  He looked at her with a smirk.

     “For what?” he asked.  She knew that he knew what she meant - he was in her head all of the time.  

     “ _You’re telling me that you don’t know_?” she asked through the bond defiantly.  

     “ _You’re learning, scavenger,_ ” he said to her silently. 

     “Ughh, never mind.  There is really no point being decent towards you, is there?” she asked aloud before turning on her heel to leave.  

 

**********

     Another rainy day meant they were confined to the indoors.  Luke watched as Rey dutifully delivered a tray to Kylo Ren.  

     “Keeping your pet well-fed?”  he asked amusedly.  Rey and Luke exchanged glances as they watched Ren begin struggling wildly in his binders.  

     “I don’t know…maybe a pet wouldn’t be so bad.  I’ve never had one before.” Rey said, her tone light and finding amusement in the absurdity of keeping the dark lord restrained in the hut that seemed entirely too small for him.  He growled at her through gritted teeth. 

     “I am no one’s pet,” he thundered.  

     “Really?  You excel at being Snoke’s lap dog,” she bit back at him, before turning to leave.  She felt his rage hit her as surely as if he struck her, and the hut shook with his power.  

     “Ben, I told you already that you may not destroy my home.  Your mother taught you better manners than that… _being a guest_ and all,” the Old Jedi said as he watched his nephew raging.  

     Kylo glared down at the cuffs, willing them to open.  “What have you done to these?”  he demanded through gritted teeth.  

     "It’s nothing too complicated.  It seems that your will to leave doesn’t exceed my will to keep you here.  Nothing more, nothing less.”  Luke's expression bore challenge with his words.  

     “ _He sounds just like Master Kriffing Yoda_.” 

      Rey heard the words clearly through the bond with Kylo Ren, followed by a most impressive string of curses.  She turned slightly away so that Luke wouldn’t see her small but amused grin, something that did not escape Ren’s attention.

 

*****

     Luke and Rey resumed their training routine, returning again for meals and breaks.  Kylo remained restrained and fed, exactly as if he were a pet.  It was humiliating, though even he had to admit the treatment was far more humane than anything the First Order would have offered.  The master and student seemed a bit conspirational when they came in for lunch.  They sat together over another lunch of stew and bread, and Kylo watched in disgust at Rey’s continually atrocious table manners.  

     “So strong with the Force, yet hopeless at eating in a civilised manner,” he said.  Rey stopped an looked up at Ren, her eyes narrowing.  

      “I would hardly think _you_ are a candidate for speaking about civility.” she retorted. 

     His nostrils flared, though he kept his anger simmering just below the surface.  He turned his eyes towards Luke.  “If she is to attend functions as part of the Resistance, she should at least know how to look and behave like a lady,”  he said pointedly as Luke glanced at him in surprise.  “One look at her and they will know something is amiss.” he said, his tone low.  “Oh yes, I know you plan to take her the gala and negotiations.  Why are you so surprised?  Why do you think I am in charge of information extraction for the First Order?”  

     Luke sat back and contemplated his nephew.  “You do have a point.  In my rush to prepare her, I might have overlooked some more finer details.   I will have your mother plan her appearance.  In the meantime, since you are so eager to teach her, I will permit you to teach her the appropriate manners and conventions,”  Luke said in a low tone.  

     Kylo snorted, scoffing at the suggestion.  “You must be joking,” he and Rey said in unison. 

     Luke stroked his beard thoughtfully with his mechanical hand.  “I am actually very serious.”  He turned to address Rey directly.  “It is no fault of your own that you do not know the rules and conventions,  Where could you have learned it growing up as you did on Jakku?  Ben was raised by Leia, a General she may be now, but she is the Princess of Alderaan."

     Kylo Ren snorted again. “Yes, of a planet that doesn’t exist.  Destroyed by the Empire, and therefore a meaningless title.”  

     Luke gave his nephew a thunderous look.  

     “If you’re trying to make the point that the blowing up of planets doesn’t faze you, we are aware.  You did it yourself not so long ago, didn’t you?” Rey interjected, her tone icy.  His dark gaze turned to her, Force energy swirling furiously around him.

     “You know _nothing,_ ”  Kylo Ren spat.  “And what’s worse is that you think you do even though you expend all your efforts in avoiding the truth.”

     Luke shoulders sagged exasperatedly.  “The two of you will be the end of me, I swear it.  Force, give me the patience…” he said as he looked between the two of them staring at each other in confrontation.  Silence settled between the three force users for a few long moments.

     “It is settled then.  Ben…tomorrow you will prepare lunch and begin Rey’s training.”  

     “This is absurd.  So I am to be your help, now?”  he asked, seething.

     “Its a step up from being a pet,"  Rey spoke, voice laced with false sweetness.   

     Luke shot them a warning look.  

     Kylo Ren held up his wrists.  “How am I supposed to do anything wearing these?”  he asked.  Luke and Rey exchanged a look, and Rey's distrust and trepidation played clearly across her delicate features.

     “Well…Rey and I have decided that you are no longer our prisoner,”  Luke said.  “We will release you on a few conditions…while you are here, you report to me.  I want you to educate me about Snoke.  And you will train in combat and the Force with Rey. She must be exposed to different styles and as we are the last, there are not many other opportunities.  And last, you will repair all the damage you’ve done here with your bare hands.  No Force.”

     “Why should I help you?  I have told you why I am here.  It was not a lie, and my purpose has not changed.”

     “Because the Force has led you here, to this very moment.  I have seen it and so have you, Ben.”  

     “I do not go by that name.  Ben is dead, he is gone.”

     “Ben is right here, in the battered, scarred body of Kylo Ren.”  Luke insisted, just as stubbornly as his nephew.   

     Kylo Ren set his jaw, looking away from Luke and Rey and out of the small window.  After a few long moments, he looked back at them.  

     “Fine.  I agree to your terms.  For now.”  he said.  Luke looked over at Rey, who had gone very quiet.  She was surprised to see the honesty in Kylo Ren’s words.  His intentions, for the moment, were true.  

     Luke gave a small smile.  “Then, I release you.”  he said, with a wave of his hand.  The bindings fell away as if made of light fabric.  

     His nephew took a moment to rub his wrists.  “I need to move.”  

     “You will.  Training begins after lunch.”  

     “When does he get to take a bath?”  Rey muttered, her nose wrinkling in obvious distaste as she observed the now free Kylo Ren.  

     “So says the scavenger from Jakku.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments. Feedback always helps feed the writer's bank!!! Please share generously. ;-))))

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to all of you who left kudos and comments from the chapter excerpt "A Mother's Intuition". Keep those coming here!


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